Amazon murder case flows upstream

A rancher accused of masterminding the slaying of a U.S.-born Catholic nun went on trial Monday in a case widely viewed as a test of the impunity long enjoyed by wealthy Brazilian landowners in the Amazon.

Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura is one of two cattlemen charged with ordering the 2005 killing of Sister Dorothy Stang, 73, who had over decades become a champion of poor settlers of the Amazon.

The petite nun was shot six times at close range at a rain forest encampment where she had gone to help subsistence farmers under threat from ranchers.

Three plotters -- two pistoleiros, or gunmen, and a middleman -- have already been convicted in connection with the nun’s killing and are serving lengthy prison terms. The middleman told authorities he received the gun used in the killing from De Moura -- an allegation denied by the rancher.

As the hearing continued into the evening, convicted gunman Rayfran das Neves Sales testified that De Moura had nothing to do with the crime. Sales, who is serving a 27-year sentence, said he killed Stang because he felt threatened by her.

Prosecutors immediately cast doubt on Sales’ testimony, noting that he had frequently changed his story.

The killing focused international attention on the lawless atmosphere of the Amazon, where cattlemen, loggers, settlers and indigenous peoples compete for dwindling resources.

As expected, De Moura denied any link to the slaying, contending he “had no participation” and didn’t even know Stang.

Dressed in a black shirt and jeans, De Moura, 36, was animated and sometimes defiant during exchanges with the judge and attorneys.

But prosecutors say De Moura and his business partner, Regivaldo Galvao, who is free on bail, had been heard commenting on the need to eliminate “that old woman.”

The pair sought to set up ranching on a patch of land that Stang had helped preserve for so-called sustainable development, small-scale agriculture designed to avoid ravaging the fragile ecosystem.

Prosecutors allege De Moura and his partner offered the gunmen the equivalent of about $25,000 to kill the nun.

A verdict is expected today, experts say. De Moura could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

The case is being heard on the second floor of a courthouse in this Amazon gateway city that is also the capital of the state of Para, notorious for its lawlessness.

Stang is one of more than 700 rural activists, farmers and others who have been killed in the state in the last three decades, human rights activists say.

Supporters of Stang from the Amazon set up a tent city in the plaza outside the courthouse to show solidarity with the nun who lived among them for years.

“They killed you, Sister Dorothy,” read one of many banners strung up in the square. “But your dream will never die.”

Also at the courthouse were more than a dozen nuns from Stang’s Notre Dame de Namur order, several of them gray-haired and energetic Midwesterners like their slain colleague.

A conviction, say human rights and environmental activists and others, would represent a rare instance of justice.

A government report cited a “consortium” of killers behind the nun’s slaying.

“We hope that this may open a new chapter in the history of Brazilian justice,” said Ariel de Castro Alves of Brazil’s National Movement for Human Rights.

Stang, a native of Dayton, Ohio, worked in Brazil for almost 40 years. She became a citizen, helped set up schools, clinics and churches and helped settlers win the right to land. Her killing was compared to the 1988 slaying of Chico Mendes, the legendary environmental activist and rubber tapper who also challenged the Amazon’s moneyed interests.

The killing of Stang prompted Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to send troops into the troubled zone and ultimately move to protect swaths of rain forest from development.

“This is a chance for Brazilian authorities to stand up and say impunity will no longer exist in Brazil,” said David Stang, 69, the nun’s brother, himself a former Maryknoll missionary and one of nine siblings from a working-class Irish-German family.

He has traveled to Brazil numerous times in an effort to ensure that his sister’s killers are punished.

David Stang spoke by telephone with his sister “Dot” the day before her death.

The nun had lived with a price on her head for some time, her brother recalled, but during their final conversation she was especially troubled about the explosive situation in the disputed jungle settlement of Boa Esperanca, where the Brazilian government had recently granted small farmers access to land. But area ranchers disputed the peasants’ rights.

Ranchers were suspected in the torching of a dozen farmers’ homes.

Stang was ultimately killed on a muddy track in Boa Esperanca, Portuguese for “good hope.”

The nun brandished a Bible at her assassins, previous court testimony has shown.

“My sister had a smile on her face when they found her body,” her brother said. “She accepted her death with a smile.”

patrick.mcdonnell @latimes.com

Special correspondent Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.