In March 2012, a couple living in London were found guilty of murdering the woman’s 15-year-old brother and were jailed for life.
On the face of it, this doesn’t seem to be an extraordinary event. We know that for some families domestic violence is commonplace: women especially are targeted by violent partners; children are abused, neglected and even murdered by their parents. Yet this case is different. The couple, Eric Bikubi and Magalie Bamu, were from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). They had tortured Magalie’s brother Kristi and eventually murdered him because they believed him to be possessed by evil spirits and accused him of putting a ‘spell’ on one of the other siblings. Kristi’s two other sisters were also accused of witchcraft and badly beaten, but they managed to survive by confessing to being ‘witches’.
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