Man accused of killing U.S. nun in Brazil claims self-defense(Bible gun)

[Algorem]

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/news-21/1134147841218330.xml&storylist=cleveland

12/9/2005, 11:57 a.m. ET
By MICHAEL ASTOR
The Associated Press

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — The man accused of killing nun and rain forest defender Dorothy Stang told a jury Friday he acted in self-defense after mistaking her Bible for a gun.

Rayfran das Neves Sales is accused of firing six shots from a .38 revolver that killed the 73-year-old nun, born in Dayton, Ohio, on Feb. 12 on a muddy road deep in the heart of the Amazon rain forest.

Sales testified the two argued over who owned the land he was working, and that Stang threatened to "finish him off" with the help of some 150 people living on a sustainable development reserve she was trying to establish.

"She said, 'The weapon I have is this,' and reached into her bag," Sales said. "I didn't know what she was going to pull out of her bag so I shot her."...



Family of slain U.S. nun hopes for justice on eve of trial

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/news-21/113409384994670.xml&storylist=cleveland

12/8/2005, 8:58 p.m. ET
By MICHAEL ASTOR
The Associated Press

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — The family of slain Ohio-born nun and rain forest defender expressed hope Thursday that justice would be done on the eve of her alleged killers' trial.

The two men scheduled for trial this week are accused of being the hired gunmen that killed 73-year-old Dorothy Stang in a remote corner of the Amazon rain forest in February in a dispute over land. Their conviction would clear the way for a trial of the two ranchers accused of hiring them.

"We have great hope. The very fact that there is a trial, that people are standing up is a good sign," said David Stang, 63, who flew to this Amazon port city from the United States with his sister Marguerite, 72, to attend Friday's trial.

Dorothy Stang, a native of Dayton, spent the last 30 years of her life defending poor settlers in the Amazon rain forest. She was shot near the remote jungle town of Anapu in a dispute over a patch of forest that a local rancher wanted to cut down...

[masshole]

1. Is he interested in the TSA?

He's got a bright future as an Air Marshall.

Senseless violence is always tragic.

[ReadTomPaine]

17. Hey, she could have had a bomb in her habit!

You know those nuns, always up to no good. How do you solve a problem like Maria? By emptying a .38 into her, it seems. <sigh>

[Judi Lynn]

2. For Christ's sake.Surely this murderer doen't imagine ANYONE would buy it.

Now I've heard EVERYTHING.

This little nun asked the government for help back when she was getting death threats due to her hard work trying to save the rain forests, to keep the ranchers and loggers from destroying everything. She got no help whatsoever, but when she was murdered, they tracked down the rancher(s) who hired the thugs who killed her. People knew IMMEDIATELY what had happened. There was no mystery. There were witnesses.



"They kept burning down the huts and
Dorothy kept having us put them back up.
She ruined their plans, so they killed her."
settler Raimundo Alfredo Campelo Maia

Stang's success earned her the hostility of local ranchers, who were used to grabbing whatever land they wanted, using forged deeds or no deeds at all.

"They throw up a fence and send 'pistoleiros' to stay there and keep people out. If there are people there they burn down their huts and force them off at gun point," explained Cavalcante.

According to witnesses, Stang was killed because she was trying to halt logging in an area of near-pristine jungle coveted by rancher Vitalmiro Goncalves Moura. Police are searching for Moura but think he fled the region after the killing.

Stang claimed Moura had no right to the land where she wanted to create a Sustainable Development Project — where settlers are granted land if they agree to preserve the forest.

For weeks, men working for Moura knocked down and burned the settlers' rickety thatched-roof huts in an attempt to expel them from the land.

"They kept burning down the huts and Dorothy kept having us put them back up. She ruined their plans, so they killed her," said settler Raimundo Alfredo Campelo Maia, 39, who lives near the spot where Stang was killed.

Maia recalls taking long walks with Stang through the jungle to visit poor settlers, where she talked about her commitment to the poor and saving the environment.

"She always spent the night with the poorest people. She lived like they lived and ate what they ate," said Maia.
(snip/...)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/19/world/main675151.shtml

[BJW]

3. kicked

:kick:

[Zenlitened]

4. It's the "nun panic" defense.

[chaplainM]

5. Calling Al Haig...calling Al Haig...

It's time for the Republicans to re-activate the squad who defended their Salvadoran nun-killing teams.


"In 1980, Salvadorean national guardsmen raped and murdered three U.S. nuns, Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel, and a church worker, Jean Donovan. The crime occurred in an atmosphere of U.S. financing and political support of rightist forces in El Salvador, during a time when other notorious murders of American labor officials and an archbishop also occurred. A Salvadorean politician, Roberto D'Aubuisson, was thought to command the death squads, and was reported to have personally ordered the slaying of Archbishop Romero. Our President and his administration turned a jovial blind eye to this violence, issuing statements that are about as shameful as any made by other Presidential entourages during Vietnam and Watergate. In 1981, Secretary of State Alexander Haig testified to Congress that the women might have been shot while trying to run a roadblock."

[Judi Lynn]

6. Thanks for posting that. Never heard it before.

You'd think we'd get used to these outrages, but as they are so completely grotesque, each one still hits you like a hard slap. That Al Salvador nun/roadblock remark was a classic.





There's no end of these idiots.

Welcome to D.U.! :hi: :hi: :hi:

[chaplainM]

9. Wait, there's more

(Thanks for your warm welcome!)

Another participant in covering up death squad activity was Reagan's ambassador to Honduras, John Negroponte.

I wonder whatever became of him...

[LostinVA]

11. Yup.... Jean Donovan, anyone?

[0007]

19. Didn't think anyone would ask the question. Mr. Negroponte

is making atonements for his past sins of assassinations by donating his time as Intelligent Chief for the Saint Neocon Society.

[phusion]

7. yea right...asshole...Lock him up for good! n/t

[bleedingheart]

8. Ha! The Nun's weapon of choice is the Ruler!!!

[gratuitous]

10. Not just a coward, but a liar

Your mother must be very proud of you, Mr. Sales.

[Eugene]

12. The Guardian: I was ordered to kill nun, court told

I was ordered to kill nun, court told

· Local farmer accused of being behind murder
· Activist gave her life for the rainforest, say supporters

Tom Phillips Rio de Janeiro
Saturday December 10, 2005
The Guardian

A man who admitted gunning down the American nun Dorothy Stang told a court in the Amazonian
city of Belem yesterday he was ordered to "kill the old woman" by a local farmer.

Sister Dorothy, 74, who had dedicated her life to defending the rural workers of Para in northern
Brazil, was shot six times in February near the town of Anapu. About 1,000 rural workers crowded
outside the court yesterday as two men accused of the murder went on trial.

Rayfran das Neves Sales, accused of firing the shots that killed her, told a packed courtroom how
Amair Feijoli da Cunha, a farmer also known as Tato, had pressured him into the execution. He later
changed his story, saying he acted in self defence after confronting the nun on a muddy road deep
in the Amazon rainforest. He said they had an argument about the ownership of the land and when
she reached into her bag, he shot her.

<snip>

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/brazil/story/0,12462,1664225,00.html

[TheWraith]

13. When I first saw the subject, I envisioned a gun which shot Bibles. NT

[struggle4progress]

14. I bet that defense would fly in Florida. eom

[Algorem]

15. Guilty verdicts in nun killing

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411319/638437

Dec 11, 2005

...

A native of Dayton, Ohio, Stang spent the last 30 years of her life fighting for peasant land rights and died as she was setting up a government reserve in valuable, hard-wood rich rain forest.

Her work put her in direct conflict with ranchers, loggers and land grabbers advancing on the world's largest rain forest...

A Brazilian Senate investigation into the crime said killings would not stop until the government broke up the support network of police and judges whom many suspect turn a blind eye to, or defend, extra-judicial killings.

"This is the start; now we're going to get the masterminds," said Senator Ana Julia Carepa of the ruling Workers' Party, who led the probe.

[truthisfreedom]

16. that book gets people in more trouble...

[yellowcanine]

18. To be fair, she might have used the Bible to block the bullets and make

them bounce back. So he had to shoot her first. Or whatever.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Friends of slain US nun vow to press Brazil fight

Friends of slain US nun vow to press Brazil fight
Sun Dec 11, 2005 3:38 PM ET

By Andrew Hay
BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) - Two Brazilian ranch hands began long prison sentences on Sunday after they were convicted of murdering American nun and rain forest activist Dorothy Stang in a trial seen as a test of Brazil's will to combat land battle killings on its Amazon frontier.

But Stang's supporters said they were now ready to go after ranchers accused of offering the two men 50,000 reais to kill the activist, who blocked their advance on valuable, hard-wood rich rain forest.

"This is just the beginning, we'll be back" said Stang's sister Margaret, as land activists wept and hugged one another after the two-day trial in the Amazon city of Belem, the capital of Para state.

Three ranchers accused of ordering and planning the slaying are fighting their case through Brazil's appeal courts.
(snip/...)

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-11T203817Z_01_MOL173204_RTRUKOC_0_US-BRAZIL-NUN-TRIAL.xml&archived=False

[Judi Lynn]

21. Another Killing Year in Land Conflicts in Brazil

Another Killing Year in Land Conflicts in Brazil
Written by Luciana Vasconcelos
Monday, 12 December 2005

This year was marked by land conflict violence says the 2005 Brazil Human Rights Report, which was drawn up by a Catholic Church organization that deals with agrarian reform, the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT).

In 2005, a total of 28 people died in violence related to land conflicts in Brazil; in 2004 the number was 27. According to the CPT, the state of Pará has the worst record with 14 land conflict murders, followed by Mato Grosso with three.

The states of Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and Maranhão each had two deaths due to land conflicts. For 2005, the CPT also says there were an additional 27 attempted murders, 114 death threats, two people tortured and 52 were physically attacked.

The CPT says that from January to August of this year there were no less than 794 conflicts over land possession involving 615,260 people. Those numbers represent a sharp drop of over 40%, compared to the same period in 2004.
(snip)

Mamede says "The harder the government works to establish social peace in the countryside and reduce the suffering of rural workers, people who have unacceptable privileges that have accumulated over time and believe they are above the law will inevitably resist and that resistance usually takes a violent form."
(snip)

http://www.brazzilmag.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4773&Itemid=49