Pirates_Ghost

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Indian peasants burned alive a man accused of stealing a gas canister in the latest outbreak of mob justice in Peru's remote southern Andes.

Alejandro Noalca, 54, was taken to hospital and died hours later on Wednesday night, a hospital spokesman said on Thursday. Only the soles of his feet were burn-free.

Chilling television pictures showed townsfolk tying him to a lamppost, beating him and pouring gasoline over him out of soda bottles, apparently after a town "trial."

Noalca was later seen staggering away from the lamppost after his bindings burned through, but a woman poured more gasoline on him and the crowd set him alight again.

Police later took him to a hospital in an ambulance.

Percy Choque, the mayor of Azangaro where the incident happened, told Peru's CPN radio this was the eighth killing at the hands of a mob this year. Locals say these parts of Peru's highlands are largely forgotten by the state.

The attack happened in the department of Puno, where a mob of Aymara Indians in the town of Ilave stoned to death a mayor accused of corruption in April. Across the nearby border in Bolivia, another mayor suffered a similar fate in June.