Brazil rancher acquitted of killing nun says he admired her

Vitalmiro Moura, the rancher acquitted of ordering the killing of American nun and rainforest defender Dorothy Stang, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Belem, Brazil, Thursday, May 8, 2008. Moura, 37, was acquitted in retrial after being convicted in 2007 and sentenced to 30 years in prison for ordering the 2005 killing of the 73-year-old nun. (AP Photo/Renato Chalu)

BELEM, Brazil—A rancher fighting allegations he ordered the killing of an American nun says he actually admired the slain activist and accused authorities of trying to frame him.

Vitalmiro Moura was acquitted this week of ordering the killing of Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old nun and rain forest defender born in Dayton, Ohio. The decision in a retrial overturned a conviction and 30-year prison sentence handed down last year.

He could face a third trial though: State prosecutor Edson Souza says he is appealing Moura's acquittal.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Moura insisted on Thursday that he had no motive to kill Stang and supports the poor settlers Stang defended because he had grown up among them.

"I never had the pleasure of meeting her, but I would have liked to, so I could have shaken her hand," the 37-year-old rancher said at his lawyer's office in Belem, a port city at the mouth of the Amazon river.

Moura said authorities first wanted to show that that Stang was killed by a consortium of ranchers and loggers. When they couldn't prove that, Moura said, they turned to him as a fall guy.

"She was a victim but her death made me a victim," Moura said.

The conviction of the gunman who shot Stang was upheld at the same trial on Tuesday, but Moura's acquittal Tuesday sparked an outcry over the government's failure to solve the killing of Stang and other cases linked to land disputes in the Amazon.

Even Moura's lawyer Eduardo Imbiriba said public pressure would likely cause his client to be convicted at retrial.

Stang's brother David questioned Moura's sincerity.

"This is disinformation they're trying to spread," said Stang, who traveled from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to attend the trial.

Prosecutors claim Moura ordered Stang killed because she was trying to prevent him from cutting down trees on a piece of land. Moura said police tried pin the crime on him because the gunman and his accomplice ran to his house, which was nearby, after the shooting.

Moura acknowledges giving 100,000 reals (US$60,000; euro40,000) to Amair Feijoli da Cunha, the man convicted of hiring the gunman, but said it was payment for cattle. Prosecutors allege Moura was paying Cunha to recant earlier testimony that Moura had offered money for the killing.

According to Moura, Cunha changed his testimony because he had recently found God and wanted to right his wrongs. Cunha only testified against him in the first trial, Moura argued, because he was pressured by police and prosecutors.

Moura blamed Roman Catholic activists who work with the region's poor for pressuring prosecutors to blame someone beside confessed gunman Rayfran das Neves Sales.

Like Cunha, Sales recanted earlier testimony that Moura was involved, saying he killed the elderly woman in self defense. Sales testified last year that he thought Stang was reaching for a gun when she tried to pull a Bible from her bag.

The northern Brazilian state of Para, where Stang was gunned down with six, close-range shots from a revolver, is notorious for land-related violence, contract killings, slave-like labor conditions and wanton environmental destruction.

"They want me to pay for all the crimes in Para state. Now that I'm acquitted, they have no one else," Moura said.

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