Czechs jailed over child abuse linked to cult

A CZECH court has jailed five people involved in abusing children in rituals linked to a bizarre religious cult.

Klara Mauerova received nine years in jail for locking her sons Ondrej (8) and Jakub (10) in small cages, burning them with cigarettes and cutting them with sharp objects. Mauerova's sister, Katerina, was given a 10-year sentence for similar crimes.

The boys were discovered by police last May in the little town of Kurim, near Brno, and taken into care with a person who officials thought was a 13-year-old girl called Anna who had been adopted by the Mauerova family.

After she fled from a children's home, however, it became clear that "Anna" was actually a diminutive 33-year-old called Barbora Skrlova. In January police found Ms Skrlova in Norway posing as a 13-year-old boy called Adam, and flew her back to the Czech Republic. Investigators believe Ms Skrlova was being somehow groomed to become a future "deity" for followers of the small sect to which she belonged, which broke away from the larger Grail Movement several years ago.

The Mauerova family and several other people involved in the case are members of the cult, which is thought to be led by Ms Skrlova's missing father.

During a trial whose strange and often gruesome revelations transfixed the Czech Republic, Ms Skrlova was found to have taken part in the mistreatment of the boys, which allegedly included forcing one of them to eat a small piece of the other's flesh.

She was sentenced to five years in prison, and her brother and a nurse each received terms of seven years.

Klara Mauerova, who frequently wept in court, said she had effectively been brainwashed by her sister and other cult members into abusing her sons.