

A 10-year-old apprentice matador fought and killed six young bulls at the weekend in southern Mexico a few hours after a ban on the controversial corrida was overturned.

Michel Lagravere, known as Michelito, performed before a crowd of about 4,000 in the bullring of his home city, Merida. The president of the ring awarded him the honour of two bull ears, and he was carried out of the ring on the shoulders of his admirers. "I am happy to have achieved this great victory," Michelito said after the fight, Agence France Press reported.

His entourage said a video would be sent to Guinness World Records to claim the record of being the youngest bullfighter to kill so many calves.

Pressure from anti-bullfighting activists and child rights groups had earlier prompted the local child protection agency to prohibit Michelito's Saturday fight on the grounds that he should not be allowed to put his life in danger.

"No one can stop me fighting," the boy had told local newspaper Diario de Yucatan in defiant mood on Friday. The ban was overturned shortly after.

Michelito started playing with a cape at the age of four and was facing bulls at six. Encouraged by his French father, a former bullfighter, the boy killed his first calf in public at the age of nine. He has fought in about 100 corridas and never had a serious accident.

"I have no reason to forbid him from his passion and I think people will understand me," Michelito's mother, Diana Peniche, said before Saturday's fight. "People who've followed my son's career have seen that the boy has special qualities."

Banned from fighting in Spain, where the minimum age is 16, the prodigy has been seen mainly in Latin America were rules are more relaxed. Before killing six bulls this weekend in Mexico, his record had been four in the Peruvian capital, Lima. Several fights by Michelito were banned in France last summer amid protests and he has been singled out by anti-bullfighting activists because, unlike most other child matadors, he always seeks to end a fight with a kill.

"People throw money at me but I am not paid a salary, just my expenses. I don't do it for money, that will come later," Michelito told Diario de Yucatan. "At the moment, I just want to be allowed to fight bulls. I was born a bull fighter and I will die one."