Nicaraguan pastor jailed for burning woman to death in 'exorcism'

Pastor Juan Rocha (with head in hands)
 and his four followers were tried in the town
 of Managua

BBC NEWS
May 10, 2017

From the section Latin America & Caribbean

An evangelical Nicaraguan pastor and four followers have been sentenced to 30 years for burning a woman to death in a so-called exorcism ritual.


Vilma Trujillo, 25, died in February after being tied up and thrown on a fire.

The group had denied killing her and said she was possessed by the devil.

"The suffering that Trujillo was subjected to is something no human being should go through," said judge Alfredo Silva.

Pastor Juan Rocha, 23, plus his siblings Tomasa and Pedro Rocha, and Franklin Jarquin and Esneyda Orozco, were convicted of murder.

All but Orozco also received six years for illegal detention, although the judge capped the jail time to 30 years, according to local media.

"They killed my wife, the mother of my two little ones. Now what am I going to tell them?" said the victim's husband, Reynaldo Peralta Rodriguez, just after her death.

Trujillo, from the rural north-west village of El Cortezal, died after a week in hospital, where she was taken to treat burns on 80% of her body.

None of the men showed any reaction as the sentences were read out, according to AFP news agency.

Women's rights groups have claimed the case is an example of fanaticism and misogyny.


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39871690

Leaders of massive doomsday cult in Nicaragua sentenced to 7 years

Timothy Williams
The Costa Rica Star

February 17, 2016

Eight leaders of a massive religious cult in Nicaragua that attracted some 650 followers from Nicaragua as well as Honduras and El Salvador to live in “subhuman” conditions in a mountainous area in the municipality of El Viejo, in Nicaragua’s Chinandega department, were sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Monday.

According to local media reports, the religious sect known as the Cuerpo Místico de Jesucristo (“Mystical Body of Christ”) convinced hundreds of people from Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador to sell all of their possessions, including their homes while handing the money over to the cult leaders and moving to squalor conditions at a large mountainous encampment in northern Nicaragua.

Amongst the some 650 followers at the encampment were more than 300 children, according to reports. None of the children attended school, and officials said that the children were sick, malnourished, and suffering from various diseases.

Followers of the cult believed that the “divine rapture” was imminent, and only those present at the encampment would receive “salvation.”

While the hundreds of cult members and their children lived in what authorities described as “subhuman” conditions in dwellings constructed of plastic and cardboard, the cult leaders, who called themselves “pastors,” lived in professionally constructed homes complete with air conditioning just adjacent to the encampment, according to local media reports.

After pleading guilty, the eight cult leaders were sentenced to five years each on charges of migrant smuggling, apparently for facilitating the illegal passage of their followers from the neighboring countries of Honduras and El Salvador, to reach the cult’s encampment in Nicaragua.

The cult leaders were sentenced to additional time for illegal construction in a protected area and child neglect, amongst other charges. In total, the cult leaders were sentenced to seven years, though prosecutors had requested that they spend 19 years behind bars.

With promise of "rapture" cult spreads in Honduras

La Tribuna
October 27, 2015

Under the false promise of being taken by Jesus Christ to the Kingdom of Heaven, the day of the "rapture", the sect Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and has followers in La Ceiba, Atlantida; in Tulián Rios, Cortés; and La Ermita, Talanga, as reported by residents of these congregations Christian witnesses.

In Nicaragua, the organization has over 600 members and has been linked to a massacre in which expired four policemen and three civilians, in the community of Ayapal, Jinotega, which occurred in December 2013.

Faced with the danger of "capture" sheep to his flock in Honduras, TRIBUNE consulted with some Nicaraguan Christian pastors how to operate that sect in the country.

Pastor Nilson Martinez recalled that the Nicaraguan media, then, reported the death of "four policemen and three civilians; there were different forms of attack, I think with knives and guns. "

How many members has this sect in Nicaragua? He was consulted Pastor Martinez, who said that "in this group there is a range of 600 to 1,000 people, between that range is; they are in a sea area near the sea, on the island of Venice. "

Religious recommended Hondurans be alert to the preaching of such organizations as "a person who confesses truly a Christian faith, its base and its foundation is writing ...".

LESSONS UNFOUNDED

How make it clear to the unwary that these sects preach true faith ?, he asked the Nicaraguan pastor, Pedro Jose Montiel, who warned that "you can see, we have a Bible, but we have thousands of religious sects".

"Today there are many sects that rise can use the Bible but his teachings are unbiblical," Montiel said. For that matter, the sect in question ensures that the rapture will occur on the island of Venezia, in Nicaragua.

The sect Mystical Body of Christ is already in three Honduran cities and has more than 600 members in Nicaragua.

The pastor said that there is no biblical basis to ensure the exact place where the rapture will occur, "there is no scripture in the Bible that centralizes us where is the Rapture, as the lessons that are being handled there in Nicaragua our country".

"... Actually that's something hurtful, because it is unbiblical, and many religious sects that have come today, which have their legal status, have many anti-biblical things that are not based in the scriptures."

The religious leader said that in Nicaragua the sect Mystical Body of Christ is called "the sect of William Branham," which hurt the Christians, because this character was a true man of God, that "things never taught were unbiblical "let alone urged anyone to sell their properties under the excuse that soon would be the day of the rapture.

On abnormal practices of this sect in Nicaragua, the religious said that his country "is heard that some have sold their properties and have taken the money to person X, the leader they have, which is what really should on the news, he called Javier Sanchez, did has he said? I do not know, because I have not been with him to listen, or do you have them ?, consists not me ".
Orellana IN HONDURAS

Meanwhile, a Honduran Christian, declined to be named, he said that the sect began operating in Honduras five years ago, and its leader Francisco Javier Sanchez.

"Your strength is not doctrinal he is Jesus Christ, God Himself, but say they are immortal, and that's what they offer, immortality. He associated with his doctrine clergyman William M. Branham, who died in 1965, but this was a true Christian, a man of God. "

He recalled that this group came to Honduras "with the Orellana family; Ivan Orellana is the leader, this man was responsible for buying the food of the sect, in Nicaragua, and gave the high life with money from the poor people. "

The respondent reported that the wife of Ivan Orellana, called Dulce Orellana, killed in La Ceiba, "and Javier came and kept unburied for 72 hours, because she said she would rise, but the police came to order to be buried. "

He added that another member of the sect in Honduras is the Nicaraguan Gerald Wells, who "is composer of evocative music, send subliminal messages through music", with which manages to dominate to the ordinary people, without higher educational level.

"This sect is a group in Tulián Rios in Cortés; La Ermita, Talanga; and another in La Ceiba, Atlantida, "he said.






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