Brazilian rancher gets 30 years for ordering killing of nun

BELEM, Brazil -- A Brazilian rancher was convicted yesterday 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.

Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura "showed a violent personality unsuited to living in society," the judge said in sentencing him to the maximum penalty for the 2005 slaying of 73-year-old Dorothy Stang.

The "killing was carried out in a violent and cowardly manner," Judge Raymond Moises Alves Flexa said.

Stang's brother David, who flew to Brazil for the two-day trial, trembled and wept after the verdict. "Justice was done," he said, adding that he now believes another rancher also accused of ordering his sister's killing may be convicted when he goes to trial later this year.

Stang, a naturalized Brazilian originally from Dayton, Ohio, helped build schools and was among the activists who worked to defend the rights of impoverished and exploited farmers drawn to 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.

Yesterday's verdict came after 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 swaths of rain forest off-limits to development.

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."