A pastor has been found guilty of murder after an exorcism in remote Nicaragua led to the death of a 25-year-old mother of two.
Evangelical pastor Juan Rocha and four followers were convicted in Managua on Wednesday after the ritual was carried out in the village of El Cortezal in northeastern Nicaragua.
Rocha and three of the others were also found guilty of illegal detention.
The trial has gripped the central American state, with it being broadcast on live television since it began on April 25.
The defendants, Rocha, Tomasa Rocha, Franklin Jarquin and Esneyda Orozco, all deny committing murder and say the woman, Vilma Trujillo, was demon possessed.
'I'm innocent of what I'm accused of,' Orozco pleaded.
But witnesses said the woman had been tied up for days without food or water and was then thrown naked onto a fire. She died a week later in a Managua hospital from her injuries.
Prosecutors asked Judge Alfredo Silva who is handling the case to hand down the maximum penalty of 30 years for murder and a further six for illegal imprisonment. They say the men had all acted cruelly and with premeditation.
Judge Silva will deliver his sentence next Tuesday.
