Mennonite father locks son in wooden box for two months… for stealing three chickens

A Canadian man who locked his 21-year-old son in a tiny wooden box for eight weeks has been forced to release him by police.



Johan Knelsen was made to live in the homemade prison, no bigger than a portable toilet, in the basement of his home in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.



His father, David Knelsen, told police that his son was mentally ill and needing punishing for stealing livestock.

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Incarcerated: Johan Knelsen was forced to live in the tiny wooden box for nearly two months as punishment for stealing three chickens

Local media reported that the young man had also used a telephone.

The family are Mennonites, a Christian denomination that follows a strict interpretation of the Bible and shuns the use of technology.

Inhumane: The box in the basement was no bigger than a portable toilet

Disgusting: Johan showed police the bottles in which he had been forced to urinate during his eight weeks in the box

Speaking from inside the wooden prison, Johan showed police the bottles he had filled with urine and pillows he had slept on during his nearly two month imprisonment.

He said: ‘I went out, and when I came back they were angry with me here at home. Some people tied me up and put me in here, eight weeks ago.

‘I ate and slept here. I did everything here. I ate and drank water and washed here.’



Police struggled to convince Johan’s father to release him from the box and had to order him to open the wooden container.



Release: Police forced the 21-year-old's father David Knelsen, who is Canadian, to open the box

Freedom: Johan steps out of the box after eight weeks inprisonment

Prosecutors said that locking someone up like that was against the law.

Attorney Ever Merida said: ‘It is not permitted that a boy is physically and psychologically torturerd inside a jail. It is in total violation of Bolivian law.’

There are dozens of Mennonite communities in the rich lowlands of eastern Bolivia.

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