SANOYEA TOWN (Liberia): Two months ago, Peter Yah’s hand was plunged into hot oil after he was accused of stealing $10. The 22-year-old Liberian student and his brother had been previously detained over the robbery, but there was not enough evidence to prosecute them.

Their accuser demanded the men undergo trial by ordeal — a practice in which guilt is determined by exposing the suspects to acute pain and interpreting their reaction.

If there is no injury, or if the wounds heal quickly, the accused is deemed innocent.

“The sassywood man put oil on the fire, said we should put our hands inside and when I put my hand inside I touched the bottom of the pot and I burned,” Yah said.

Sassywood is the name given to the man who oversaw the ordeal — a cross between a witchdoctor and a judge.

“I put my hand in there four times. I was afraid and I just wanted to be free without a problem,” Yah added, his fingers still puffy and shiny pink.

Weeping sores have formed around Yah’s nails and he cannot fully straighten his fingers or make a fist.

Trials by ordeal have been banned in this West African country but many people do not know they can refuse to take part.

In a land where the justice system is a shambles after 14 years of on-off civil war and decades of corruption, where police regularly demand bribes and remote villages are often several days journey from the nearest courts, the brutal system fills a legal vacuum.

Liberia’s infrastructure was devastated by the conflict, which killed around 250,000 people. The fighting ended when former President Charles Taylor, a one-time warlord, went into exile in Nigeria in 2003.

Former World Bank economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has just been elected president in the first vote since Taylor left, becoming Africa’s first elected woman head of state.

A Harvard-trained economist, Johnson-Sirleaf has vowed to use her technocratic skills to rebuild Liberia.

In the once-prosperous country, most people struggle to survive on less than $1 a day and many have been traumatised by the conflict, fought mainly by young fighters high on amphetamines and marijuana. During the war, painful death and mutilation became everyday affairs.

Although prisons are bursting with inmates and some people have been incarcerated without trial for years, judicial reform is low on the list of most people’s concerns and the issue was largely absent from the election campaign.—Reuters