Police Chief Henry Greene said Sunday that investigators believe one of the officers blindfolded and then tortured the boy while he was in custody at the Vreed-en-Hoop police station outside the capital, Georgetown.

"We are going to get to the bottom of this. The boy said he was blindfolded during interrogation, and so we are not sure so far which of the two did this to him. We have to go deeper to crack this case," Greene said.

He did not identify the officers, and no charges were immediately filed.

The boy, whose name has not been released, had been in custody along with two other youths in last week's beating death of Ramnauth Bisram, a former governing party official for the region just west of Georgetown. Authorities have not given a possible motive.

Lawmaker Bernard De Santos, a lawyer and former attorney general, said that the teenager's genitals and thighs were horribly burned, and that the alleged abuse fits a pattern of brutality by criminal investigators in the South American country.

"His injuries are there for all to see, and any self-respecting government would act on this quickly," De Santos said Saturday, referring to a photo published by the Kaieteur News that purports to show the boy's extensive burns.

De Santos represents a different suspect charged with Bisram's murder. He alleges his client was severely beaten in custody and had a cigarette put out on his tongue.

A U.S. State Department report this year gave Guyana mixed reviews on human rights, saying a generally positive record has been marred by reported abuses, including security forces' mistreatment of suspects in the former British colony of 760,000 people.

In recent months, human rights groups and opposition parties have called for a comprehensive probe into allegations of police brutality and torture involving police and the military.