Officers did “everything humanly possible” to protect a British man who was dragged out of a police station and set on fire in Ecuador, according to local reports.
A mob including more than 100 people “exceeded the capacity of seven police officers” who were trying to protect a man who had been arrested as a suspect in a fatal shooting, the Playas del Cuyabeno Police said.
The man was being held at a police station in Playas del Cuyabeno, a remote village in the Amazon rainforest, following the shooting.
The British citizen had earlier been intercepted by a group of residents who began beating him, and he was moved inside the police station to protect him at around 6am on Sunday.
Around six hours later, while officers were waiting for specialist units to arrive, a group broke into the station and captured the suspect, before setting him on fire in the street, Ecuadorian TV network Ecuavisa reported.
A police statement said: “There had been problems between the two men that died. The man we believe to be British had shot a local man, causing his death.”
“We know that he was working and teaching English and was making reservations for tourists visiting the area,” a police chief added. “But we don’t have any more information right now and that is the focus of ongoing investigations, which are seeking to determine his full name as well.”
“We are still trying to establish the specific identity of the citizen we believe is a British national,” the police explained.
“We’re presuming he’s English, although we don’t have documents that prove his nationality status. We’re trying to confirm all the information including his migration status.
“We don’t have any proven information relating to how long he had been in this community.”
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Newspaper Extra reported that a foreign citizen had been “lynched and burned” to death by a group of residents in front of the police station, during the “shocking act of apparent community justice”.
The British national died from his burns, Extra reported.
It is understood that specialist units had been slow to arrive at the scene due to how remote the village is.
Playas del Cuyabeno is in the north-east of Ecuador and is only accessible by river, reports added.
The Foreign Office has been contacted for comment.
