A total of 23 people have been charged and charged by prosecutors in the death of eight elderly people due to alleged witchcraft in the town of Cooladje, in Guinea-Bissau, the judicial body announced this Thursday.
The defendants, including the alleged psychic, are accused of eight crimes of causing bodily harm aggravated by the result (death), says a note from the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau sent to Lusa.
The indictment handed down by prosecutors at the Cacheu regional court in Bissora, a northern province of the country, also charged the defendants with 21 offenses of simple bodily harm against many other people who fell ill.
Victims were forced to take poison made from wild plants to prove whether they were witches.
According to the prosecution, the “seer” who is among the accused “was hired by the local population in order, according to them, to clear the Barofa area of witch doctors.”
The local population attributed the “constant deaths of pregnant women, children and youth” to witchcraft, as well as the “academic and political failures of those born in this city.”
Suspects of witchcraft were forced to swallow a poisonous mixture that killed eight elderly people, five men and three women, and sickened 21 people.
Prosecutors have filed charges and ordered the prosecution of a total of 23 people, who face up to ten years in prison under the criminal law in force in Guinea-Bissau.
The Prosecutor General’s Office also reports that the allegedly accused psychic “is on the run, so he did not provide documents proving his identity and place of residence, and he could not be detained for the first judicial interrogation.”
Therefore, according to the prosecutor’s office, he will be tried in absentia for the crimes charged against him.
Of the 23 accused, twenty are awaiting trial in a pre-trial detention center, the source also indicates.
Similar cases involving alleged witchcraft practices are recurring in communities in Guinea, especially in rural areas.
A similar situation occurred last year in the village of Susany and led to the death of four people.
The Government, the President of the Republic and the Guinean League of Human Rights rejected such situations and called on the police authorities to take measures to ensure that they do not happen again in the country.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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