A Ghanaian man has reportedly been shot dead while testing whether a magic spell has made him bulletproof.

A Ghanaian news agency reported that the man, Aleobiga Aberima, from the village of Lambu in northeastern Ghana, had asked a jujuman -- a local witchdoctor -- to make him invincible to bullets.

After smearing his body with a concoction of herbs every day for two weeks, a fellow villager volunteered to shoot him to check whether the spell had actually worked.

He died instantly from a single bullet.

The news agency said angry villagers then attacked the witchdoctor, and beat him severely until he was rescued by a villager elder.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service