Legacy Matters
IN VENEZUELA, thugs are worshipped as saints: but instead of lighting votive candles, followers light cigarettes and place them in the mouths of statues.
Karina Perdomo, a lively 22-year-old woman dressed in a tight black shirt, stares blankly at the figure of a saint in the General Cemetery in southern Caracas, puffing on a cigar absent-mindedly.
This saint's name is Ismael. He wears a baseball cap and dark glasses, smokes a cigarette and carries a gun.
He is the king of the santos malandros or holy thugs, a group of popular saints who were petty criminals in life and were gunned down by the police in the 1960s and 1970s.
Growing numbers of Venezuelans revere them, despite the fact they are not recognised by the church. It is an increasingly typical feature of Catholicism in Latin America, where religion is mixed with non-Christian figures and beliefs.
The popularity of the dead hoodlums has soared since the rise in crime during the last decade and has become almost a trend in the past few years.
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a teenager arrives, and bends down to tap the stone grave to salute the saint, carefully lighting a cigarette in the statue's mouth. The youngster's name is Johnny, and he has come here to ask Ismael to ensure he's not to be captured by the police. "He's my only hope, I'm alive thanks to him, I was shot 22 times," he says, lifting his T-shirt to show his scars.
Patron saints of Venezula gangland crime