Canadian lynched in Peru main suspect in killing of medicine woman: prosecutor
LIMA (Reuters) - Prosecutors in Peru have uncovered new evidence that implicates a Canadian man, who was lynched in the Amazon last week, in the slaying of a revered indigenous medicine woman, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office said on Tuesday.
Sebastian Woodroffe, 41, had bought a pistol a little over two weeks before the medicine woman, Olivia Arevalo, was shot dead near her home in the jungle region of Ucayali, said Ricardo Jimenez, the president of a regional group of prosecutors.
A witness has testified that a silver-colored pistol fell from a backpack Woodroffe was carrying when villagers angry over Arevalo’s death grabbed him before lynching him, Jimenez said.
“We want to see if that weapon actually existed. We haven’t found it yet but we’re looking for it,” Jimenez said on a brief press conference by telephone.
“With the new evidence that has appeared, he is the main suspect,” Jimenez later told Reuters by text message.
Jimenez said prosecutors believe Woodroffe may have killed Arevalo because her son owed him 14,000 soles ($4,335).
Neither Woodroffe’s nor Arevalo’s family could be reached for comment.
Arevalo’s slaying prompted outrage as it followed the unsolved killings or attacks on other indigenous people in the Amazon who had sought to defend native lands from encroachment by illegal loggers, miners and drug traffickers.
Policing is scant over much of the Peruvian Andes and Amazon and villagers in far-flung provinces often punish accused criminals according to local customs.
On Monday, a Peruvian judge ordered the arrests of two men accused of lynching Woodroffe. No arrests had been made by early on Tuesday.