RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — An Amazon rancher convicted of ordering the killing of American nun Dorothy Stang has been acquitted in retrial.
Vitalmiro Moura is one of two ranchers who allegedly ordered the killing of the 73-year-old rain-forest defender three years ago.
Moura had been convicted and sentenced to 30 years for the crime, but Brazil requires retrials for first offenders sentenced to more than 20 years.
The jury on Tuesday also convicted Rayfran Neves das Sales, who had confessed to firing six, close-range shots at Stang in 2005.
Prosecutors said he had been offered $25,000 to kill the nun after she fought to preserve a patch of jungle that ranchers wanted to raze for logging and cattle ranching.
Sales told the court that he had acted alone and in self-defense, contradicting previous testimony in which he said he had used Moura’s gun. Tuesday’s decision ended his third trial for the crime, after a panel of judges annulled two earlier convictions last year.
Stang’s brother, David, lives near Colorado Springs.
