Mayan mob lynch couple in Guatemala

April 20, 2006

A man and a woman were lynched and burned to death by a furious Guatemalan mob who attacked them. Around 800 people snatched the couple from a jail in a village, 25 miles southwest of Guatemala City, where they were being held for attempting to kidnap a 7-year-old boy.

A police spokeman said, "The people […] took them out of the jail, beat them until they were unconscious, and then burned them with gasoline before anyone could intervene".

In the past, many crimes have been committed in Guatemala by mobs and local criminals. In 2000, a Japanese tourist and a Guatemalan bus driver were killed after being attacked by a mob who thought they were there to kidnap children. Lynch mobs have killed about 360 people in the impoverished and crime-ridden Guatemala since 1996, when it emerged from a 36-year civil war that killed about 200,000 people, mostly Mayan peasants.