When Chritians turn into fanatics

EXTREMIST members of a bizarre Christian cult in the Philippines have been blamed for the torture-killing of a husband and wife, whose bullet-riddled bodies were found three weeks ago with their hands and feet chopped off.

Police in the northern Mindanao state of Lanao del Norte said Wilfredo Ocampo, 31, and his wife Merlita, 25, were killed and dismembered by the Sagrado Corazon Senyor, or Sacred Heart of Jesus, cult, some of whose members are renowned underworld assassins.

The cult, which is also known as the tag tag, or chop chop, cult because of its gruesome body-chopping rituals, wages a religious war against the 'enemies of God'. Members are deeply superstitious, with activists tattooing the face of Jesus on their backs and Latin inscriptions over their bodies in the belief this will deflect bullets.

The group consists mainly of primitive tribesmen from Mindanao and the Visaya islands who carve up their victims so the evil spirits which they believe inhabit the body become physically handicapped, says a man known simply as Bagani, or tribal warrior, who is wanted in connection with at least one cult killing.

In a macabre ritual, the body parts are then collected to authenticate the kill to cult chiefs or criminal contractors and added to the group's gruesome 'souvenir' collection.

The cult was founded in 1976 by Tutu Hadi and has grown from its initial membership of 50,000 to around half a million, Bagani said.