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Post Courier via AP
Bystanders watch as a woman accused of witchcraft is burned alive in the Western Highlands provincial capital of Mount Hagen in Papua New Guinea on Wednesday.
Assailants stripped, tortured and bound a woman accused of witchcraft, then burned her alive in front of hundreds of witnesses in a Papua New Guinea town, police said Friday after one of the highest profile sorcery-related murders in this South Pacific island nation.
Some of the hundreds of bystanders took photographs of Wednesday's brutal slaying. Grisly pictures were published on the front pages of the country's biggest circulating newspapers, The National and Post-Courier. The prime minister, police and diplomats condemned the killing.
Kepari Leniata, a 20-year-old who had a child, had been accused of sorcery by relatives of a 6-year-old boy who died in the hospital the day before, police spokesman Dominic Kakas said.
She was tortured with a hot iron rod, bound, doused in gasoline, then set alight on a pile of car tires and trash in the Western Highlands provincial capital of Mount Hagen, Kakas said.
Deputy Police Commissioner Simon Kauba on Friday blasted Mount Hagen investigators by phone for failing to make a single arrest, Kakas said.
The public were apparently not cooperating with police and police carrying out the investigation were not working hard enough, Kakas said.
"He was very, very disappointed that there's been no arrest made as yet," Kakas said.
"The incident happened in broad daylight in front of hundreds of eyewitnesses and yet we haven't picked up any suspects yet. He was very, very curious about that and he blasted the investigators on the phone," Kakas added.
Kakas described the victim's husband as the "prime suspect." The husband had fled the province, Kakas said. Kakas said he did not know if there were a relationship between the husband and the dead boy's family.
Sorcery has traditionally been countered by sorcery in Papuan New Guinean culture. But responses to sorcery allegations have become increasingly violent in recent years.
Kakas said the death was the first sorcery-related murder in Papua New Guinea in a year.
Police Commissioner Tom Kulunga described the murder as "shocking and devilish."
"We are in the 21st century and this is totally unacceptable," Commissioner Kulunga said in a statement.
He suggested courts be established to deal with sorcery allegations, as an alternative to villagers dispensing justice.
Prime Minister Pete O'Neill said he had instructed police to use all available manpower to bring the killers to justice.
"It is reprehensible that women, the old and the weak in our society should be targeted for alleged sorcery or wrongs that they actually have nothing to do with," O'Neill said.
The U.S. Embassy in the national capital Port Moresby issued a statement calling for a sustained international partnership to enhance anti-gender-based violence laws throughout the Pacific.
The embassy of Australia, Papua New Guinea's colonial ruler until independence in 1975 and now its biggest foreign aid donor, said "We join ... all reasonable Papua New Guineans in looking forward to the perpetrators being brought to justice."
The Associated Press
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Man's total ignorance and inhumanity to others never cease to astound. If there is a hell, these ignorant morons belong there.
First off let me say this makes me sick..Poor woman..Now let me say this is nothing less than i would expect from these people..Notice the garbage they are standing in?The men are all standing around doing nothing as usual waiting for a handout...They all make me sick and if they all died tomorrow good riddence!!!! Disgusting little things,not a one of the men tried to protect a female.Yes i know i am a hater ..No i am a realist!!!!
What he did to that 20 year old girl IS evil, pure Sadistic Evil. He should get the Same treatment he handed down to her considering what He did WAS Evil. They obviously put very little focus on EDUCATION, this guy Stupidity shows his lack of intelligence.
Education has nothing to do with it. Sure, we can sometimes show people that certain things are not as they thought, by educating them. But education does not change the heart. Only Christ can do that. A person can affect the heart of another to some extent, through kindness and love. But the heart will only change of the One who created it comes into it and changes it from the inside out.
To carry what I said out a little farther, we could send every radical, hate-filled Muslim to Harvard, but they would just cme out as an educated radical, hate-filled Muslim. Education will not change them. Evil is not influenced by PHDs or other degrees. Bill Cinton is, by all accounts, a brilliant man. And he is highly educated. But he is also a rat of a human being. (That is not t compare him to these people in the article, although he may very well have been involved in numerous murders as governor of Arkansas). It is just to say that education does not change the heart.
Happend to someone I don't know far away from where i live = I don't care, not my business.
This is these peoples culture that I am sure goes back 1,000s of years, who are we to judge and impose our standards on them?
I bet most people there are very happy
Even the Neanderthals knew you take care of your own.
I continue to be amazed at all of the ignorant people who miss no opportunity to bash Christianity. First, such people fail to understand the most basic concept that "christianity," (small c) and Christianity (capital C) are two different things. Not all so-called Christians are Christians in the biblical sense. Barack Obama can claim to be a Christian, meaning that he supposedly ascribes to the tenets of Christianity. But he is by no means a biblical Christian, someone who has placed his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and who has bowed before Christ as his Lord. Many persons in history, and many groups, have called themselves Christians and have done terrible things in the name of Christianity. The Crusades are one example. But no TRUE Christian, someone who has the Lord in His heart, changing him from the inside out, is likely to do anything like what was done to this woman in the article.
Those who use this as an opportunity to attack Christianity are not much better than the people who burned this woman alive.
You really are ignorant aren't you! What qualifies you to claim knowledge of our President's heart and beliefs? How dare you so harshly judge a person who you know nothing about. Did our President open up and confess his beliefs to you? So you're an example of a "real Christian" are you? Bite me!
How dare you JohnE to say John3421009 knows NOTHING about Obamas beliefs. We know that Obama sat in Rev. Wrights church for 20 years! Although he claims he didn't hear a word of it! You are the one that obviously knows nothing. Need I say more?
I'm a white witch..Does that make me evil?
Do you know what a white or dark witch is?
No?
Your science has no real clue of the dark or light sides of witchcraft or the power it bears once you learn to master these powers.
Sheeple believe in their scientist that has no real clue of anything other then their own mindless theories..
yes I know the difference just don't care. I will take my physics or your superstition any day.
What we need is a good plague to thin the human herd.
Thank goodness that we're so enlightened in America. Our superstitious wacko's humanely shoot their victims.
What makes you think we regard our own evil doers as any better? If they are insane, they need treatment. If they are not insane, they are no better than this PNG group.
This is why the world's people don't deserve to go on forever. This is by far the most evil wicked sin a living thing could do to another. And the moronic retards in the background watched!
You are sick people over there. This is what I call monkey mentality!
Another third world wonderland where they receive foreign aid to keep them alive while they live in some dark past.
Keep feeding them and they will keep breeding more of the same kind.
This article so sickened me that I can't even come up with a rational comment.
NOW they gone and done it..........just wait until her wicked sister of the west finds out about this!!!!!
No matter the country, no matter the culture, these apes will ALWAYS be savages.
What is wrong with these stupid crazy people? How can people still be so ignorant, it is 2013!!
Ain't religion just wonderful?
God belief is just great Tumble! I love how many people on here spout off about how wonderful christianity is when it is this very belief in ludicrous, superstitious nonsense that lies at the root of this incident.
And religion is completely at fault here? These animals are just plain savages. And they'll remain that way with or without it. Just look at communism! Complete anti-religious nutcases who were responsible for all kinds of genocide, murder, torture and total subjugation of it's own people. Was it religion's fault then too? The common denominator here is, all long as humanity exists there will always be violence, cruelty, hate, etc. We suck.
Mob mentality at it's finest. Disgusting to say the least. Shades of the 1600's.
This crime has nothing to do with Christianity. It may have everything or something to do with distorting the original intent and message of the scripture. Or, it may be someone or a group using "witchcraft" as a means to get rid of this women. It is obvious these people have been deceived and misled.
That's what christianity does. Mislead and deceive the weak.
And christians haven't been?
This is what happens in a society where the weaker are defenseless to the will of the stronger and the ignorant - and a good example of why law abiding citizens should have the right to firearm ownership. FBI statistics show that in the majority of violent attacks, police respond "after" the crime has been committed.
wow.........they don't see the flaw in that logic???? To commit a haneous crime in actuality, to someone who is Accused of one? Who is the real evil here? So, killing in some circumstances is okay, but not others? And John Q. Public gats to make that judgement???
Don't be to hard on them. Let them come here illegal , make them legal so we can learn there culture and try not to offend them. Free health care , we'll pay for it. Sure don't want to be called a racist. Worry about this country first and I do feel for this poor women but we already have this low culture here.
How is this different from those good Christians who tried their best to eliminate Native Americans under the guise of Manifest Destiny? And they were not primitive. Then they thought blacks had to go. So it wasn't just our own witch burning background. Our worship of guns keeps our death fascination in tact. But we ARE really good at throwing stones.
Good point, non-par (did you mean, "sub-par?"). In fact, any time this happens, or something similar, we should all keep quiet about it and look the other way, lest we become "stone throwers". Yes, good thinking. No negative comments, no nothing.
I think his point was considering our nations history we have no room to bash their violence no matter how sick it is
The husband is the prime suspect. Hmmm... Perhaps she turned him in to a newt. A newt? Yes, well, he got better.
And the people who stood and WATCHED??????? Their hearts are FILLED with EVIL.
Very true Debbie. But remember, Americans used to travel many miles, on horseback to watch a hanging.
It doesn't take an evil heart to stand and watch this Deb, that's the scary part! All it takes is belief in the existence of "witches."
belief in the existence of witches - and one's own righteousness.
Here we have a nation of people that have just recently climbed out of their caves and are trying to figure out how they fit in with everything they see. When something goes wrong in their lives it must be someone's fault. It can't be their fault, who would do something to hurt themselves? Answer: Burn a witch.
I'm not sure how appropriate it is to show the actual aftermath (or its it during) of the awful act in your picture. You wouldn't show a hanging or the bodies of soldiers (our side or theirs) on this website.
Seems alittle insensitive.