Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Sentence in Dorothy Stang's Murder upheld

I've written about Stang before. She was the former American nun who fought for the poor to have access to land in Brazil and who was murdered last year. Yesterday, in a re-trial, a judge upheld her murderer's sentence of 27 years:

In a retrial, a judge in Belém sentenced Rayfran das Neves Sales to 27
years in prison for the shooting death of Dorothy Stang, an American nun and
rain forest defender, handing down the same punishment as in the first trial, in
2005. (NY Times)

There's nothing particularly alarming in this retrial - they are mandatory in Brazil for all sentences that are 20 years or more (maximum sentence in Brazil being 30 years). Still, it's good to see the judge uphold Moura's sentencing. Moura's defense that he shot her out of "fear and rage" is not a legitimate defense of murder, and it's good to see the judge not bow into whatever local political pressures may have existed (and there may not have been many by this point - I just don't know).