Panama: 7 killed, 14 tortured in apparent cult killings

Preachers from a cult accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing members of a remote indigenous community near Panama's Caribbean coast were due to appear before a judge on Saturday.

Seven people were killed in a bizarre religious ritual in which residents were rounded up by about 10 lay preachers and tortured, beaten, burned and hacked with machetes to make them "repent their sins,” authorities said.

Police freed 14 members of the Ngabé Buglé indigenous group who had been tied up and beaten with wooden cudgels and Bibles.

Local prosecutor Rafael Baloyes described a chilling scene found by investigators when they made their way through the jungle-clad hills to the remote Ngabé Buglé indigenous community on Tuesday.

Alerted by three villagers who escaped and made their way to a local hospital for treatment earlier, police were prepared for something bad, Baloyes said, but were still surprised by what they discovered at an improvised “church” at a ranch where a little-known religious sect known as “The New Light of God" was operating.

About a mile (2 kilometres) away from the church building, authorities found a freshly dug grave with the corpses of six children and one adult.

Diómedes Blanco, a member of the community who helped police in the rescue, said that shortly before the killings, two people in the sect told him about what they were doing.

Another community member, Pacífico Blanco, said one of the church members told him about how "if (the victims) did not believe on God then we had to kill them and torture them."

The murdered woman's husband, farmer Josué González, told the Associated Press he tried to rescue his wife and children, as well as a teenage neighbour, but was only able to retrieve a 5 year-old girl and a 7 year-old boy from the church.

One other son, 15, managed to escape on his own, despite being beaten by the fanatics.

González's pregnant wife, five of their children, and their 17 year-old neighbour were found in the mass grave outside the hamlet.

While fanaticism sparked the tragedy, the area's isolation — and the poverty and lack of services for the indigenous Ngabé and Buglé peoples — had a role.

The remote hamlet, nestled in the jungle of the indigenous Ngabé Buglé enclave, is hours from the nearest clinic, or police force.

By the time authorities arrived by helicopter, it was too late for many.

Apparently, the sect is relatively new to the area, and had been operating locally only for about three months and there were few warning signs.