20 YEAR SENTENCE FOR MUTILATION

A court in the central Mozambican province of Zambezia has sentenced two men to 20 years imprisonment for the grisly mutilation of a 12 year old boy, in order to sell his body parts to a Malawian witch-doctor, reports Thursday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”.The attack on the boy, Ruben Carlos, took place on 5 May, in the district of Morrumbala. Ruben was alone in the house, since his parents had gone to work on their fields. 23 year old Isaias Domingos, the boy’s uncle, and 38 year old Horacio Jasse, knocked on the door, and invited Ruben to hunt bush rats with them.They offered him a packet of biscuits, and Ruben went with them. But in the middle of the bush, they held the boy down and cut out his eyes and his penis. Domingos and Jasse abandoned Ruben, doubtless imagining that he would die of his wounds. They made their way to Malawi, intending to sell the body parts they had extracted to a supposedly powerful witch doctor. The price for two eyes and a penis was 100,000 Malawian kwachas – about 650 US dollars at current exchange rates.But Ruben did not die, and the police set out looking for his tormentors. The two men were detained in Malawi, in a joint operation between the Malawian and Mozambican police forces.Handing down the 20 year sentence on Wednesday in the Zambezia provincial capital, Quelimane, the judge, Jorge do Rosario Langa, told Domingo and Jasse “I hope you recognise the crime of castration you committed, and that you understand you have brought misfortune to this child for the rest of his life”.Ruben has been undergoing medical treatment in the Zambezia Provincial Hospital. The hospital director, Juleca Sumale, told reporters he will soon be transferred to Beira, to be placed in an Institute for the Blind, where he can receive specialist care and rehabilitation.