A British man has been savagely murdered in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest by a baying mob seeking justice over an alleged shooting.
Local reports said a crowd lynched him and burned him alive after storming a police station where he had been taken into custody.
The unnamed male, widely reported to be ‘English’ or ‘British’, was held by uniformed officers on suspicion of shooting a local man dead, reports said.
But six hours after his arrest a crowd stormed the police station, dragged him onto the street and and set alight in front of officers who said they were afraid to intervene.
Respected Ecuadorian newspaper Ecuavisa said the horror killing happened in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve in Ecuador’s Amazon region, which is a popular eco-tourism area.
It is the second largest reserve of the South American country’s 56 national parks and protected areas, and is located in the Putamayo Canton in Sucumbios Province.
The British national is said to have been handed over to police around 6am local time on Sunday after being held by locals accusing him of another man’s killing before being murdered just after midday the same day.
Ecuadorian newspaper Extra reported officers who formally arrested him had decided not to intervene when a baying mob forced their way into the local police station ahead of his transfer out of the area.
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They stood back, the newspaper said, in order to avoid being attacked themselves and to avoid additional damage to state property.
It said police reinforcements had taken time to reach the area because of its remoteness and difficult access.
A local TV station, reporting on the two deaths, said: ‘In the early hours of Sunday, April 20, in the parish of Playas de Cuyabeno, at the closure of an event that took place for the anniversary of the Kichwa community, an incident occurred where as a result two people died.
‘Those two people were a community member from the area and another person of British nationality who died due to the severity of his burns.’
The Ecuadorian man killed has been named locally as Rodrigo Chavez.
A third man was reportedly arrested over the Briton’s killing.
Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo reported that police were yet to issue a statement, as they were still gathering information on the case.