Two young brothers, age seven and nine, are said to have brutally tortured and killed a two-year-old girl with "full understanding" of what they did to the victim, the state news agency reported Wednesday. ( dpa )
Prosecuting Judge Marta Pascual was quoted by Telem agency as saying that the two boys not only had "no mercy for the pain suffered by little Milagros Belizan, but they also appeared to have taken pleasure in the killing."
The judge, who sits in Lomas de Zamora near Buenos Aires, said her observations were based on the findings of an examination by a psychiatrist who talked to the two boys.
"I don't know if their childish imagination allowed them to realize they were committing a crime. But they understood very well that they were torturing Milagros, who had to suffer a long time before her death," the judge said.
She indicated the brothers had come from a violent home, and one could not exclude that they were doing to the little girl what had been done to them at home.
"The extent of the violence for children who are not even youths, but are so little themselves, is shocking," Pascual said.
The two boys were taken into police custody along with their mother to protect them from a vigilante mob. It was unclear what would happen to them. The boys were extremely violent and needed a adult hand to show them the right way that was stronger than currently present, the judge said.