Eight of the 97 Papua New Guinean villagers convicted of killing seven people in a sorcery-related attack four years ago in Madang have been given the death penalty.
The National Court judge Justice David Cannings imposed life sentences on the remaining 88 after one of the accused died last month in hospital.
The 97, from villages on Madang's Rai Coast, were found guilty of the murders of three elderly men, two children and two young men at Sakiko village near Ramu Sugar town.
They were each charged with seven counts of wilful murder.
The eight on death row were found to be directly involved in the murders.
Justice Cannings said the 97 villagers had marched into Sakiko village on April 14, 2014, motivated by concerns about the number of deaths in the area attributed to sorcery.
He said a genuine belief in sorcery cannot be regarded as an extenuating circumstance to lessen the gravity of the crimes.
Belief in witchcraft, sorcery and the occult is known locally as sanguma which is widespread in some provinces.
Source: RNZ, July 25, 2018
Eight sentenced to death in PNG for sorcery killings
SYDNEY (AFP) - Eight people have been sentenced to death and 88 jailed for life over the sorcery-related killings of seven men and children in Papua New Guinea, a report said on Wednesday (July 25).
The frenzied murders happened in April 2014 in the Pacific nation's Madang province, with the National Court hearing a "berserk" crowd used bows and arrows, knives and axes to kill the victims.
Of the 97 people charged, eight were handed the death penalty and 88 imprisoned, The National newspaper reported. The other person died last month.
AFP was unable to reach the court in Madang to confirm the verdicts.
Local PNG media have previously reported that the crowd marched on Sakiko village, motivated by concerns about several deaths in the area attributed to sorcery.
The National said on Wednesday the mob first killed a man travelling to work at a sugar cane farm. He was shot with an arrow and hacked to pieces. Another was also hit with an arrow then slashed with knives and axes.
Three other men were killed before two children, aged five and three, were snatched from their mother's arms, the newspaper said. Previous reports said they were "chopped to pieces".
In sentencing, Justice David Cannings said there was no proven connection or justification between the belief in sorcery and what happened.
"So the genuine belief in sorcery is not a mitigating factor. It cannot be regarded as an extenuating circumstance to lessen the gravity of the crimes," he was cited as saying.
"Black magic" and cannibalism sometimes occur in PNG, a sprawling and poor nation where many people do not accept natural causes as an explanation for misfortune, illness, accidents or death.
Rights groups have waged campaigns for justice for victims of sorcery-related attacks, spurred by the horrific murder of a young woman accused of witchcraft in 2013.
In that case, Kepari Leniata, 20, was stripped naked, tied up, doused in petrol and burned alive in front of a crowd by relatives of a boy who died following an illness in the Mount Hagen area.
Following Leniata's murder, in 2013 PNG repealed the 1971 Sorcery Act which allowed a reduced sentence for anyone who committed assault or murder if they believed their victim had been involved in sorcery.
It also revived the death penalty for violent crimes.
The law allows for execution by lethal injection, hanging and firing squad, but it has not been carried out since 1954.
Source: Agence France-Presse, July 25, 2018
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde