Three jailed for torturing eight-year-old “witch”

Three adults who tortured an eight-year-old girl after believing
she was a witch were jailed for a total of 24 years last Friday,
writes Amy Taylor.

The girl was beaten with a high-heeled shoe, pricked with a knife
all over her body and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes. She
was also bundled into a laundry bag and threatened with being
thrown into a canal.

Sita Kisanga, 35, and the girl’s 37-year-old aunt, who cannot
be named, were each sentenced to ten years in jail, the maximum
sentence possible for child cruelty. Sebastian Pinto, 32, was
sentenced to four years.

Judge Christopher Moss, QC, said that the girl had told “an
account of cruelty to a child so awful it is almost beyond
belief.”

Passing sentence at the Old Bailey he told the defendants:
“She was labelled a witch. What followed was no less than a
campaign of cruelty amounting to torture.”

Tests have shown that Kisanga, Pinto, the girl and the aunt were
all related, although exactly how is unclear.