Three found guilty in 'witch' child torture case
Two women and a man were found guilty in the UK today of cruelty to a girl who was tortured and threatened with death for being a “witch”.
The eight-year-old was cut with a knife, beaten with a belt and shoe and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes to beat the devil out of her.
And, in a final cruel twist, she was put into a zip-up laundry bag and told she would be “thrown away” into a river, the Old Bailey heard.
The orphan was beaten until she was made to admit she had been doing witchcraft and is still traumatised by the experience.
After she was terrorised in the council flat in Hackney, east London, area wardens found her shivering in bare feet on the steps.
She told them she was hungry and later told police that she had been surviving on tea and bread.
The girl, who is now 10, was brought to Britain in 2002 by her 38-year-old aunt after her parents were killed in Angola.
The two women were found not guilty of a charge of conspiracy to murder the girl.
The 38-year-old aunt, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found guilty of four charges of child cruelty.
Another relative, Sita Kisanga, 35, of Hackney, east London, was found guilty of three charges of aiding and abetting child cruelty.
Kisanga’s brother Sebastian Pinto, 33, of Stoke Newington, north London, was found guilty of one charge of aiding and abetting child cruelty.
The three were remanded in custody and were warned by Judge Christopher Moss that they faced jail sentences.
