Black Jesus Killed

 An infamous cult leader known
as “Black Jesus”, who was
suspected of cannibalism, has
been chopped to death in a
remote Papua New Guinea
village, reports said Friday.
According to AFP, Steven Tari, a convicted rápist, had
been on the run since escaping from a prison in Madang in
the Pacific nation’s east during a mass break-out with 48
others in March.
Madang police chief Sylvester Kalaut said that Tari and
one of his followers were killed at a village about 20
kilometres (12 miles) outside Madang on Thursday as they
were attacking a young woman.
“He is now dead and this could be the fate of the others
who are also on the run from authorities and I am warning
and strongly urging those escapees to surrender
themselves to authorities,” Kalaut told the PNG Post-
Courier.
Tari, a failed Lutheran pastor who was widely known as
Black Jesus, was found guilty in 2010 of ráping girls who
belonged to his Christian-based sect and sentenced to up
to 10 years.
At the time, he had thousands of village followers,
including a core of armed warriors to protect him, in what
is commonly referred to in PNG as a “cargo cult”.
As part of his “culture ministry”, he preached that young
girls were to be “married” to him as it was God’s
prophecy.
Kalaut said the woman Tari was in the process of
attacking was “a flower girl tricked into joining the cult”,
adding that angry villagers had surrounded him and his
companion and killed them.
His death follows that of a young high-school girl about a
week ago — a murder alleged to have been carried out by
Tari.
When he was captured in 2007, there were widespread
allegations that his cult also practiced cannibalism and
sacrificial blood rituals, but police only charged him with
rápe.
PNG is a sprawling nation where black magic, sorcery and
cannibalism sometimes occur.
Last year, police arrested dozens of people linked to an
alleged cannibal cult accused of killing at least seven
people, eating their brains raw and making soup from
their penises.