Female armed robber stripped, beaten and set alight by angry lynch mob

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 1:50 AM on 17th December 2009

Stripped naked to the waist, she begs for mercy as she is savagely beaten by a lynch mob in the middle of the street.

Alejandra Maria Torres was part of an armed gang that tried to rob bus passengers in Guatemala City.

But as she tried to escape the passengers stripped and beat her before dousing her in petrol and setting her alight.

Police put out the flames and arrested her. Her three companions escaped.

Alejandra Maria Torres sits bloodied on a street after being beaten, doused with petrol and set on fire during a lynching in Guatemala City

Lynchings are common in Guatemala. In the last year, mobs have attacked more than 250people, leaving at least 40 of them dead.

Criminals are a frequent target but officials are sometimes attacked, including a judge who issued a rape verdict thought by the public to be too lenient.
The practice stems from the civil war of 1960 to 1996 when civil defence patrols carried out many of the murders in the state-sponsored genocide of Left-wing rebels, many of them peasants.

About 200,000 people died.

Passengers of a public bus accused Torres and three men, who escaped on foot, of participating in an armed robbery

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1236323/Female-armed-robber-stripped-beaten-set-alight-lynch-mob.html