A suspected rapist and murderer was buried alive in the grave of his alleged victim by enraged villagers in Bolivia.
Santos Ramos, 17, had been identified by Bolivian police as a possible culprit in the death of 35-year-old Leandra Arias Janco.
But when they failed to act immediately, residents of the village of Colquechaca took the law into their own hands.
Witnesses said a group of villagers seized the teenager during the woman's funeral earlier this week and buried him alongside his victim.
They then blocked access to the settlement in the Potosi district of Bolivia's southern highlands to prevent police and prosecutors from reaching the area.
A witness said Ramos was tied up before being thrown into the open grave, which was then filled with earth.
The local radio station reporter who revealed the grim story has refused to be identified for fear of reprisals.
Lynchings sometimes occur in rural and poor parts of Bolivia in the absence of a heavy police presence.
The burial comes just days after residents of the nearby Quechua indigenous community of Tres Cruces stoned to death a suspected thief and burned his accomplice alive.
It was alleged the two had earlier robbed a car and killed its driver.
Earlier this year, a Bolivian police officer was lynched by an angry mob after he was confused with a thief in the city of El Alto.
Potosi is the highest city in the world, at 13,420 feet above sea level, and Colquechaca is a village of 5,000 inhabitants.
The area was exploited by the Spanish for its silver and funded much of the Spanish Empire's expansion into the New World due to its Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain), which has been mined for more than 500 years.
Many inhabitants of the area are poor miners, still mining the mountain for rare silver and tin.
Due to poor worker conditions and unsafe mining practices, present-day miners have a short life expectancy with most contracting silicosis and dying within 12 years of beginning work in the mine.
