Four albino killers sentenced to hang in Tanzania

By George Obulutsa

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Tanzania's high court has sentenced four men to death by hanging for killing a 50-year-old albino man, local media reported late on Monday.

Television footage showed the men, who killed Lyaku Willy and removed his head and legs, leaving the courtroom in Shinyanga region under heavy police escort.

Willy's killing was one of a spate of attacks on the country's estimated 200,000 albinos in the past two years, mostly in the remote northwest of the country near Lake Victoria, where superstition runs deep.

Their body parts are prized in some regions of Tanzania, where witchdoctors say albinos -- who lack pigment in their skin, eyes and hair -- bring luck in love, life and business.

Albino hunters kill their victims and harvest their blood and body parts such as hair, genitals and limbs for potions.

"We are glad that the family and friends of Lyaku can finally have a sense of justice after this horrific loss," Peter Ash, founder of Under The Same Sun, a Canadian campaign group, told Reuters in an email.

"We urge the authorities to swiftly act on the sentence. Justice delayed is justice denied."

The convictions bring to seven the number of people sentenced for murdering albinos, following the first conviction of three albino killers in September.