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Arrest in Brazil needle boy case | |
(about 16 hours later) | |
A Brazilian toddler has been found with up to 40 needles inside him, which police say his stepfather deliberately inserted in a "black magic" ritual. | |
Police said Roberto Carlos Magalhaes has confessed to sticking the sewing needles into the two-year-old boy, who is in intensive care at a hospital. | |
Mr Magalhaes said his mistress told him to ritually kill the child to take revenge on his wife. | |
Doctors will try to remove the needles, some 2in (5cm) long, from the boy. | |
The toddler was taken to hospital in the north-eastern Bahia state by his mother, complaining of stomach pains and vomiting. | |
X-rays showed scores of sewing needles inside his neck, torso and legs. At least one had punctured a lung. | |
'Revenge attack' | |
Police said Mr Magalhaes broke down and confessed after being arrested. | |
"He did that for revenge, to get back at his wife," the police chief the town of Ibotirama, Helder Fernandes Santana, was quoted as saying by AFP news agency. | |
"His mistress told him to kill the child through a macabre ritual," Mr Santana said. | |
The mother told police she suspected that the boy had been the victim of a black magic ritual after she found suspicious objects in the home she shared with Mr Magalhaes - her husband of six months - and her six children. | |
Doctors said most of the needles will be removed, but not the ones inside organs as their removal could cause more damage. | |
They said there were no signs of wounds on the boy. | |
Reports say the boy is in serious condition, but that he has shown some improvement since being admitted to hospital on Sunday. | |
Doctors initially said up to 50 needles had been inserted into the child, but later revised that figure to up to 40. |