Brazilian says he shot U.S. nun out of fear, rage

[Judi Lynn]

Source: MSNBC/Associated Press

Brazilian says he shot U.S. nun out of fear, rage
Convicted gunman says in retrial elderly missionary threatened him
Updated: 5:39 p.m. ET Oct. 22, 2007

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - The gunman convicted of killing American nun and rain forest defender Dorothy Stang told the jury at his retrial Monday that he shot her out of fear and rage, court officials said.

Rayfran das Neves Sales was sentenced in 2005 to 27 years in prison for shooting Stang six times with a .38-caliber revolver on a muddy road deep in the heart of the Amazon rain forest that same year. Brazil grants an automatic retrial for any sentence longer than 20 years in prison.

Stang, a 73-year-old from Dayton, Ohio, spent the last 30 years of her life defending poor settlers in the violence-plagued rain forest region and prosecutors say two ranchers hired Sales to kill her because of a dispute over a piece of forest they wanted to clear for pasture.

Many see the trial as a test of Brazil’s commitment to prosecuting the sort of land-related killings that have taken more than 800 lives in Para state alone. Only a handful of killers have ever have been convicted.





Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21424849/

---

I don't think so.



Rayfran das Neves Sales, is seen in a video which shows how he killed nun Dorothy Stang during a trial at Justice Tribunal in Belem, Brazil, on Friday, Dec 9, 2005. Rayfran das Neves Sales and Cloadoaldo Carlos Batista will be the first of five men accused in the killing to stand trial for the Feb. 12 killing of 73-year-old nun gunned down in the remote corner of the Amazon rainforest in a dispute over land. Dorothy Stang 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.(AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Amazon nun-killer sentenced to 30 years in Brazil
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0515-stang.html
mongabay.com
May 15, 2007

[Judi Lynn]

1. She believed her work was so necessary she left her home, became a naturalized Brazilian citizen

and apparently expected to spend the rest of her life working just as she had. It's almost IMPOSSIBLE to believe anyone would ever believe this man when he says he was "afraid."

[Richard Steele]

2. Yeah. Septugenarian NUN = scary and murderously infuriating. I don't think so.

This lowlife POS killed her because he was paid to. End of story.

[raccoon]

14. Self delete after reading article. nt

[roguevalley]

15. oh god. you might want to put some sort of warning on the piccie.

that is like seeing my grannie dead on the road. this was an important story. thank you for posting it.

[Judi Lynn]

17. I'm really sorry about the size of this photo. I have gone back for many pages,

looking for a small version I have seen published. It is absolutely horrid, but I decided to include it simply because it helps to bring the message home in a way nothing else could. This was a brutal, vicious crime to be laid at the feet of nothing other than greed and hatred, disrespect for others. God knows there's enough of that going around, everywhere!

Once again, I spent a long time searching and searching for the much smaller version of this photo, and I am sorry for the overwhelming impact. Too much sorrow summoned suddenly.

[roguevalley]

19. that's all right. people should see it, for her honor and memory if

nothing more. poor lady. poor world.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. Is that an exit wound or did he shoot her in the back?

I read the MSNBC story, which didn't say. It DID say:

"At the first trial, Sales said he shot Stang after he mistook the Bible she was taking out of her bag for a gun."


Now, there's an excuse I've never heard before.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Just saw your post. I'll look around to see if I can get a clear explanation.

Here's a very good overall article on the 74 year old lady:

Published on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 by the Independent/UK
The Life and Brutal Death of Sister Dorothy, a Rainforest Martyr

On the Lawless Fringe of Brazil's Amazon Jungle - Where Illegal Loggers Have Devastated the Rainforest - the American Nun Dorothy Stang Defended the Poor,Then the Gunmen Came for Her

by Andrew Buncombe

Sister Dorothy Stang lived among those who wanted her dead. When they finally came for her she read passages from the Bible to her killers. They listened for a moment, then fired. Her body was found face down in the mud, blood staining the back of her white blouse.
(snip)

As with the death of Mr Mendez, a rubber tapper, the murder of Sister Dorothy has triggered waves of outrage among environmental and human rights activists who say she dedicated her life to helping the area's poor, landless peasants and confronting the businesses that see the rainforest only as a resource to be plundered and which have already destroyed 20 per cent of its 1.6 million square miles.

It has also highlighted the problem for the Brazilian government of balancing a desire to protect the rainforest with pressure to open tracts of forest to support strong economic growth as demanded by the International Monetary Fund, which loaned Brazil billions of dollars following a recession in 2002. Such a conflict of interests has hindered attempts by the authorities to fulfil the promise of the left-leaning President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to find homes for 400,000 landless families. The promise is badly off target and showing no signs of rapid improvement.
(snip)

While the suspects' names have not yet been released, Sister Dorothy's supporters say there is little doubt as to who was responsible. While the local people called her Dora or "the angel of the Trans-Amazonian", loggers and other opponents called her a "terrorist" and accused of supplying guns to the peasants. The Pastoral Land Commission of the Roman Catholic Church, which she worked for, said in a statement: "The hatred of ranchers and loggers respects nothing. The reprehensible murder of our sister brings back to us memories of a past that we had thought was closed."
(snip/...)http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0215-03.htm

~~~~~~~~~~
I'd like to mention seeing this article a few moments ago provided the very first chance I ever had to learn that the IMF has been the entity pressuring this destruction of the rainforest!

It has also highlighted the problem for the Brazilian government of balancing a desire to protect the rainforest with pressure to open tracts of forest to support strong economic growth as demanded by the International Monetary Fund, which loaned Brazil billions of dollars following a recession in 2002.

In the meantime, I'll see if I can turn anything up in the next few minutes about how she was shot.

[Judi Lynn]

18. Adding the photo from the article posted above..........

People walk 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) on the transamazonic highway carrying the coffin containing the body of American missionary Dorothy Stang from the airport to the Santas Missoes Church (Holy Missions Church) where Stang's wake took place in Anapu, northern Brazil, Monday, Feb. 14, 2005. Stang was gunned down Saturday Feb. 12, 2005, at the Boa Esperanca settlement where she worked with some 400 poor families near Anapu, a rural town about 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) north of Rio de Janeiro. (AP Photo/Paulo Santos)

[Judi Lynn]

21. Looking for more on the murder, found the following:

The petite nun was shot six times at close range at a rain forest encampment where she had gone to help subsistence farmers under threat from ranchers.

http://www.celsias.com/2007/05/15/dorothy-stang-murder-trial/

Uh, oh. Here it is:

Witnesses have said the nun pulled out her Bible and began reading from the Beatitudes before she was shot in the face and head.
(snip)

This rancher is one of the people who instigated the crime and it’s very seldom in Brazil that a person at this level has been indicted in a crime," said Notre Dame de Namur Sister Elizabeth Bowyer, the order’s spokeswoman. "Its brought (farm workers) to a realization that justice is possible and that they do have rights and they do have power.

"All Sister Dorothy ever wanted for her people was justice," Sister Elizabeth said. "This verdict means there is hope for the poor and landless. It will also serve as fuel to continue the work of Sister Dorothy and hundreds of others who fought and died in the struggle to end poverty, hunger, and social injustice in Brazil."
(snip)

http://www.catholiccincinnati.org/tct/may1807/051807srdorothy.html

More:

~snip~
On February 12, 2005, Sister Dorothy Stang, a seventy-three year old activist and American nun from Dayton, Ohio, was shot to death in the state of Pará in the Amazonian rainforest of eastern Brazil. Sister Dorothy was walking to a meeting with farmers whose homes had been burned by ranchers and logging companies intent upon driving them out, when two men approached her with weapons drawn. As the gunmen pointed their weapons at her, Sister Dorothy reached into her cloth bag, took out her Bible and began reading. After some moments of hesitation, the killers shot her six times at point blank range, and she died on the muddy road.
(snip)

http://edlc.org/dorothy.html

More:

In taped confessions her killers
described the execution-style killing

~snip~
Sister Dorothy had herself received death threats. She was murdered this February.

In videotaped confessions to the police her two killers described shooting her execution-style as she read her bible - although they gave different versions in court. One of them said he shot in self defence after confusing her bible for a gun.
(snip)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4529450.stm

[sasquatch]

4. This is a HUGE story in Dayton

I wonder if it will be on the front page of the Dayton Daily.

[DemBones DemBones]

5. No doubt. So do you know if she

was shot in the back? I haven't read a lot about the case.

[sasquatch]

7. I don't really know

[xchrom]

6. recommend

[rpannier]

8. He was so afraid of a 70 year old unarmed nun that he had to shoot her

Why don't I believe him?

[gratuitous]

10. She was nudging his conscience

And for a hired killer, paid in blood money, there's nothing more dangerous and life-threatening than having feelings. He had to plug her, don't you see? And why did she have to get all up in his face like that? He was the man with the gun. If you think about it, she had it coming to her, having an attitude and all. In fact, I smell a countersuit for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Did she leave an estate?

Any minute now, this guy can probably expect a call from Rudy Giuliani.

[rpannier]

11. I hadn't thought of that

Plus...she was a woman...an uppity woman

Time to call in the roachman tom delay. Afterall, it was he that said, "No one likes an uppity woman."

[DemBones DemBones]

20. Yes, she dared to pull a Bible out of her bag and read to him.

In one article, this particular man claims he thought she was pulling a gun when she went for her Bible but another article says she read the Bible to the men before they killed her.

It's tragic when someone devotes their life to helping others and winds up murdered in cold blood.

[gratuitous]

22. Well, if you're going to try to be a peacemaker

It's wise to consider what happened to the likes of Jesus, Gandhi and Dr. King. All three of them met with violent ends. Meanwhile other folks who send people off to make war often live out their days in relative calm and security; which is why the example of Mussolini or Ceaucescu scares the living daylights out of them.

[Judi Lynn]

23. On another level, Cuban radio show host, Emilio Milián, in Miami, had called condemned the extreme

violence going on in the Cuban "exile" community against their political opponents, bombings, etc. to the point the FBI had named Miami as "America's Terror Capital," and Cuban right-wing reactionaries rigged his car which blew off his legs when he tried to start it up at the radio station. Only swift emergency work saved his life.

Very, very sad, and so odd seeing human monsters destroy those who hope for peace, isn't it?

[DemBones DemBones]

24. I'm sure Sr. Dorothy had considered the dangers

of her mission in life. Many other sisters have been killed in Latin America and Central America because they tried to stand up for the people. Even though they occur with some regularity, their murders are sad.

A lot of war criminals were brought to justice after WW II but none so quickly and dramatically as Il Duce. I imagine he wished he'd taken Hitler's way out.

[raccoon]

9. To Greatest with thee! K&R. nt

[MGKrebs]

12. self delete

[Javaman]

13. Ignorance, fear, stupidity, ego, machismo and a gun are never a good combo...

Poor woman.

[me b zola]

25. Godspeed, Sister

I can only hope that this brutal execution of a peaceful woman will create a huge backlash over the deforestation.

[Judi Lynn]

26. Brazil court confirms 27-year sentence for killer of US nun

Brazil court confirms 27-year sentence for killer of US nun
Posted Wed Oct 24, 2007 0:33am AEST

The murderer of a US nun who nettled powerful interests by campaigning to save the Amazon forest has had his 27-year prison sentence confirmed after a retrial by a Brazilian court.

Rayfran das Neves Sales was again found guilty by a jury in Belem, northern Brazil, of shooting dead Dorothy Stang, a 74-year-old missionary killed in February 2005 in the middle of the lush jungle region she fought to save.

"The jury unanimously voted to accept the prosecution's argument recognizing the defendant as the perpetrator of the missionary's murder," a court statement said after the one-day retrial.
(snip)

Over the past three decades, more than 1,000 poor rural workers in Brazil's Para state, covering much of the Amazon, have been murdered.

- AFP
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/24/2068315.htm?section=world