Caracas, Sep 1 (IANS/EFE): A customer dissatisfied with the adjustments made to a pair of pants stabbed a tailor to death in Venezuela, media reports said.

Sabato Moschiano, a 43-year-old Italian immigrant, was killed last Saturday in his shop by a customer who after trying on the pants said that he didn't like the adjustment the tailor had made, Marbelis Lugo, the former sister-in-law of the victim, told media outlets.

When the customer complained, Moschiano assured him that he would not charge him for the work.

"I'm not going to pay you, but I am going to kill you," said the attacker, stabbing Moschiano in the chest before fleeing along with two companions, said Lugo, who added that she felt it was "inconceivable to kill a person over an adjustment to a pair of pants".

A 12-year-old nephew of the tailor was also a witness to the act and helped get his uncle to a nearby hospital, but Moschiano arrived there with no vital signs and was pronounced dead.

Moschiano, who had lived in Venezuela for 31 years and was a naturalized citizen, worked in the same tailor shop that his father had opened years ago.

On Feb 8, Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami acknowledged before the Legislative Assembly that the murder rate in Venezuela is "above the average for Latin America" at 48 per 100,000 inhabitants.