A young Papua New Guinea woman has been burnt to death in what authorities fear is the latest sorcery killing in the remote and lawless interior of the country.

The woman, believed to be aged between 16 and 20 years old, was stripped naked, gagged and tied to a truck loaded with firewood which was driven to a town dump and doused with petrol before being set alight, according to witnesses who saw the act near Mount Hagen in the Western Highlands.

"The girl was stirpped naked and could not shout for assistance or resist as she was tightly strapped and her mouth gagged," Jessie James, who witnessed the girl's death told the local Post Courier Mail.

"I don't know the right words to describe it but it's barbaric. Can you find the best words to describe such acts that are rampant here?" said highlands police chief Simon Kauba.

PNG police believe the girl was either accused of being a witch or that she had been blamed for infecting one of her killers with HIV/Aids, both of which 'crimes' are punsihed by the death penalty by the jungle justice practised by the indigenous communities of the Highlands.

Black magic is still practiced in the Highlands and it is not unusual for women to be killed after being accused of sorcery, adultery, or of spreading HIV/AIDS.

An editorial in the Post Courier compared the country's hysteria over alleged sorcery with the 17th century witch-craft trials in the USA and made a plea for the end of such brutal practices.

"Sorcery is a most difficult crime to prove," it said. "Those who say she got primitive justice should pause to think, it could be you next on that truckload of burning tyres."

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