BORAS, Sweden, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- A Swedish couple have been charged with beating the husband's teenage daughter to force demons out of her.
The father, 37, and stepmother, 33, were ordered held without bail Friday, the TT news agency reported. Prosecutors say the 14-year-old girl may have been beaten and burned over several years.
"The girl was put through a number of things to get rid of evil spirits that possessed her, according to certain notions," Daniel Larson, the prosecutor, told the newspaper Boras Tidning.
The couple appeared in district court in Boras. The stepmother faces the most serious charge, gross violation of a person's integrity, while her husband is charged as an accomplice.
The Boras newspaper said the National Board of Health and Welfare received an anonymous tip in 2004 that the girl was being subjected to abuse. But no action was taken at the time.
The couple are said to be affiliated with a controversial religious congregation known as The River. Its head, Gun Hartikainen, refused to talk to the newspaper.
"I have nothing to say to you. Have a blessed day. Good bye," she said.
