Suspected killer buried alive with victim by angry mob in Bolivia
Riot policemen mount a security cordon at a head of the Chaparina bridge along the road connecting San Borja and Yucumo, in northeastern Bolivia, on September 22, 2011 to prevent possible clashes between natives marching against a road project through a nature preserve and others in favor of the construction.
People living in an isolated Bolivian village took the eye for an eye concept a step further with something resembling a grave for a grave. A mob of about 200 locals attacked Santos Ramos, a 17-year-old accused of raping and killing a woman near the town of Colquechaca, police told reporters.
The violence took place at the funeral for the woman, Leandra Arias Janco. She was 35.
A reporter for a local radio station, speaking anonymously "for fear of reprisals," told BBC News and other agencies that Ramos was tied up at Janco's funeral. He said that mourners threw Ramos into the open grave where Janco's coffin was and then immediately filled the grave with dirt, burying Ramos alive with his alleged victim.
The mob prevented police from intervening by blocking a rode.
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Police confirmed to the Associated Press that they had been investigating Ramos in connection to Janco's death. However, Ramos was only identified as "a possible culprit," as there hadn't even been a trial yet.
It is not uncommon for people to take the law into their own hands in Bolvia because the justice system there can be highly corrupt.
In 2010, villagers from Uncia lynched four police officers. In another horrific example, a police officer in the Bolivian city of El Alto was lynched after people mistook him for a thief. Concerns about lynching also led Defense Minister Ruben Saavedra last August to deploy 27 troops to San Matias, a town where yet three more local residents had been lynched.