POSTED: 3:20 p.m. EDT, May 16, 2007Story Highlights
• Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura guilty in murder of American nun Dorothy Stang
• Moura, a Brazilian rancher, sentenced to 30 years as mastermind behind shooting
• Stang had attempted to halt rampant jungle clearing by loggers and ranchers
• Trial a key measure of making masterminds of land-related killings accountable
BELEM, Brazil (AP) -- A Brazilian rancher was convicted Tuesday of ordering the killing of an American nun and rain forest defender in a case seen as an important test of justice in the largely lawless Amazon region. A judge sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
A jury voted 5-2 to convict Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura of masterminding the shooting of 73-year-old Dorothy Stang on February 12, 2005, deep in the rain forest that she had been working decades to defend.
Judge Raymond Moises Alves Flexa said Moura "showed a violent personality unsuited to living in society," adding that the "killing was carried out in violent and cowardly manner." The sentence is the maximum in Brazil, which does not have the death penalty.
Stang's brother David, who flew to Brazil for the two-day trial, trembled and wept after the verdict. "Justice was done," he said. He expressed hope that another rancher accused of ordering his sister's killing, Regivaldo Galvao, might soon be tried. Galvao is free on bail while his lawyers file motions to avoid prosecution.
Stang, a naturalized Brazilian originally from Dayton, Ohio, helped build schools and was among the activists who worked to defend the rights of impoverished farmers in the Amazon region. She also attempted to halt the rampant jungle clearing by loggers and ranchers that has destroyed some 20 percent of the forest cover.
Tuesday's verdict came even though three other men convicted in connection with the killing -- a gunman, his accomplice and a go-between -- recanted earlier testimony that Moura had offered them $25,000 to kill Stang in a conflict over land he wanted to log and develop.
Human rights defenders said the trial was a key measure of whether the powerful masterminds behind land-related killings can be held accountable in the Amazon state of Para. Of nearly 800 such killings during the past 30 years, only four masterminds have been convicted and none are behind bars.
Shortly after Stang's killing, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ordered the army into the region, suspended logging permits and ordered large swathes of rain forest off-limits to development.
"The sisters are thrilled because it means it's possible to find justice and we want to make it possible for the many more people who were killed to find justice," said Betsy Flynn, a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, the same order as Stang.
About 200 settlers from the jungle town of Anapu, in the region where Stang worked, celebrated the verdict at their makeshift encampment across from the court.
"I'm happy because she was a great woman and didn't deserve to be killed," said Eliete Prado, an elderly woman who made an 18-hour bus trip over dirt roads from Anapu to attend the trial.
Moura denied ordering the killing during the trial, and his lawyer mounted a lengthy anti-American tirade in his closing arguments, calling Stang "the fruit of a poisoned tree."
Accusing the United States of crimes ranging from atom bombs dropped on Japan during World War II to the treatment of prisoners at its Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, defense attorney Americo Leal said Stang "shares this DNA of violence, the DNA to kill."
David Stang expressed dismay.
"The trial's about Bida, Dorothy was the victim," Stang said, referring to Moura by his nickname. "So this fantasy world the defense lawyers are trying to create only maintains this cycle of killings."
On Monday, Moura said he did not even know the nun, who had been organizing poor settlers around the jungle town of Anapu for 23 years.
"This thing about money isn't true. This thing about me and Bida talking isn't true," Clodoaldo Carlos Batista said Monday, in recanting his earlier testimony implicating Moura.
Batista, who was sentenced to 17 years in prison as an accomplice to gunman Rayfran Neves Sales, claimed he had been coerced into implicating Moura by two American FBI agents who traveled to Brazil shortly after the murder to monitor the police investigation.
Both Batista and Sales, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison, claimed the agents threatened to send them to the United States, where they could face the death penalty if they did not cooperate. Brazil does not have the death penalty and the most a convict can serve at a single stretch is 30 years.
The judge said Moura must remain imprisoned pending appeal.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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