Cradling him tenderly in his arms, this is the heartbreaking moment a father finds his dying son who was thrown from a bridge three days earlier for refusing to carry out a murder.

Angel Ariel Escalante Perez, 12, had been walking home school when he was ambushed gangland thugs who ordered him to shoot a random bus driver or be killed himself.

Because his father, Luis Escalante, worked as a bus driver, the brave schoolboy refused and said he would rather they killed him.

He was then given the choice of being murdered by machetes or thrown off a bridge.

Angel chose the latter and he was hurled over the Incensio Bridge in the Guatemalan capital of Guatemala City.

Despite plunging nearly 450ft, he survived after landing in the thick foliage below.

But it also meant he remained hidden while lying critically injured for three days until his father and search teams eventually found him.

He was taken to hospital, where medics fought for 15 days to save him, but he died from his injuries.

Javier Soto, a spokesman of the Guatemala fire service, said of the incident, which happened in July: 'The father said his son had been gone for 72 hours and told him that six alleged kidnappers threw him off because he refused to kill a bus driver.

'The child was asked how he would prefer to die - whether it would be through stabbing or by being thrown off a bridge - and he chose the latter'.

This week, it emerged a 14-year-old boy blasted a man at point-blank range after being hired as a hitman in Mexico.

Ulises Abraham shot Guillermo Gastelum Jacques in the face, chest and shoulders after being given a revolver and pressured into carrying out the killing.

Local media said he had been promised the equivalent of £1,200 for the hit.

The victim was rushed to hospital but died on the operating table in the border city of Tijuana, in the north-western Mexican state of Baja California.

Javier Soto, a spokesman of the Guatemala fire service, said of the incident, which happened in July: 'The father said his son had been gone for 72 hours and told him that six alleged kidnappers threw him off because he refused to kill a bus driver.

'The child was asked how he would prefer to die - whether it would be through stabbing or by being thrown off a bridge - and he chose the latter'.

This week, it emerged a 14-year-old boy blasted a man at point-blank range after being hired as a hitman in Mexico.

Ulises Abraham shot Guillermo Gastelum Jacques in the face, chest and shoulders after being given a revolver and pressured into carrying out the killing.

Local media said he had been promised the equivalent of £1,200 for the hit.

The victim was rushed to hospital but died on the operating table in the border city of Tijuana, in the north-western Mexican state of Baja California.