Parents 'tried to exorcise daughter, 10'

A couple living in Sweden were charged Friday with child abuse for trying to exorcise their daughter at age 10 because they thought she was a witch, a prosecutor said.

The couple, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, "think their daughter is a witch and reject the accusation" of abuse, Daniel Larson, a prosecutor in the western Swedish town of Boraas, said.

The indictment is based on three alleged acts of abuse committed between February 2007 and February 2008.

The girl, who claims she is not the couple's biological daughter though the parents say otherwise, was allegedly beaten unconscious and forced to drink a concoction made up of a cleaning product and her own urine, according to the charge sheet.

Social services removed the girl, born in 1997, from her parents' custody in 2008 and she has since been living with a foster family. The girl only recently opened up about the alleged abuse "once she felt safe," the prosecutor said.

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