GUATEMALA CITY – A Mexican boy, who was kidnapped and held captive for 38 days in a rural area in northwestern Guatemala, identified three of the suspects in the case during a court hearing.

The 13-year-old boy appeared Monday in a criminal court in Guatemala City, where he described for the judges the abuse he endured at the hands of the suspects.

The boy told the court that William Michicoj Lopez, Faustino Miguel and Claudia Leticia Muñoz Castillo were members of the gang that abducted him on Oct. 18, 2011, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

The kidnappers, who asked the boy’s family to pay $400,000 for his release, took the victim to Huehuetenango, a Guatemalan city on the border with Mexico, where they held him for nearly six weeks while negotiating the ransom.

Guatemalan National Civilian Police, or PNC, officers rescued the boy in an operation on Nov. 18 and arrested the three suspects.

The kidnappers tortured the boy and made a video in which he appears “beaten and bloodied,” prosecutors allege.

The video was sent to the boy’s family to pressure them into paying the ransom, prosecutors said.

The three suspects could get up to 50 years in prison if convicted on kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and arms charges. EFE