An angry mob of neighbors in a Guatemalan village burned two men to death after taking them from police who had arrested them on suspicion of murdering a woman, the prosecutor’s office said Sunday.
The double lynching occurred on Saturday in a village in the predominantly indigenous Quiché region after police arrested two men, aged 23 and 25, on suspicion of shooting dead a trader at a market.
Lynchings are common in Guatemala due to the deteriorating security faced by the population and the impunity for many criminals.
“When residents realized the arrest, they armed themselves heavily and stopped the PNC. [Policía Nacional Civil] He submitted the accused to the judgment of a competent judge and exposed him to threats against the village of Pachu. [municipio de] “Both were set on fire in Sakaplaas,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement, and both died.
Around noon, “an armed attack against a woman occurred and PNC personnel pursued the two men who allegedly carried out the attack.” [y escaparon en una motocicleta]people captured in [cercano] “The village of San Jorge,” the prosecutor’s office pointed out.
According to local media, police took the two detainees to the Sakaplas barracks, where about 200 angry neighbors surrounded them and robbed them of the men.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the rioters took the two men to Pachuchi on the outskirts of Sakaplas, where they set them on fire.
A source at the prosecutor’s office told AFP that the two men were “clearly financiers and killed the woman because she didn’t pay the money.”
Zacaplas, home to about 55,000 residents, is one of 21 municipalities in northwestern Guatemala’s Quiché region, the scene of bloody fighting between the army and leftist guerrillas during the civil war (1960-1996). .
Lynchings continue to occur in Guatemala due to poor security. Between 2008 and 2020, vigilante justice cases killed 361 people and injured 1,396 in the country of 18 million people, according to the NGO Mutual Aid Group.
Source: Diario.Elmundo
