The court held an 8-year old was beaten and nearly killed by members of her family, believing her to be a witch. The girl’s aunt, 40, got 10 years for four charges of abuse and cruelty.
The cousin of the child’s aunt, Sita Kisanga, 35, alos of Hackney, convicted of three charges of aiding and abetting child cruelty and her brother Sebastian Pinto, 33, of Stoke Newington in the north end, was guilty on one charge of aiding and abetting and got four years.
The convicted felons lived in Hackney in east London. The girl’s aunt arranged to bring the girl from Angola back in 2002. A year later, she’s being beaten as a witch.
Testimony from the trial said the child was beaten, cut with a knife and had chili peppers rubber in her eyes. At one point, the girl said, Kisanga chased her around the kitchen told, “today you die.” 
Judge Christopher Moss reviled at the defendants calling what they did “amounted to a campaign of torture,” He went on to say “The account given by that little girl was so awful it was almost beyond belief.”
The girls confessed to being a witch after being beaten. The aunt and her cousin put the girl in a bag and threatened to throw her in a river.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
