NEWS FROM BRAZIL
supplied by Brazil Justice Net
Number 590, May 21, 2008
In this week's News from Brazil:
Acquittal of Landowner is “Provocation for Crime”, affirms CPT (Pastoral Land Commission)
by Gisele Barbieri, Brasília (Radioagência NP)
On Tuesday, May 6, the Paraense Justice (in the state of Pará) acquitted the rancher Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, also known as Bida, who was accused of having ordered the assassination of the North American missioner Sr. Dorothy Stang. The decision was made by the jury, with five votes to two.
The acquittal provoked indignation. “I am very disappointed, but I respect the Brazilian State and the opinion of the jury,” affirmed David Stang, brother of Dorothy, who came from the . For the lawyer of the CPT (Pastoral Land Commission), José Batista Afonso, the decision represented a “provocation for crime”. According to him, there was proof for condemning Bida.
The lawyer affirmed that “no new fact was added since the first judgment” which occurred in 2007. On that occasion, the rancher was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Bida has been in prison since March of 2005, and he only had the right to a new trial because it was his first offense and the sentence exceeded 20 years.
The reversal in this case was provoked by the change in testimony of the gunman Rayfran das Neves, accused of having executed the assassination. In the beginning, he had argued that he had killed Dorothy on the orders of Bida, who had given him the weapon used in the crime. But on Tuesday, May 6, Rayfran changed his testimony and assumed individual responsibility for the homicide, affirming that there had been no one ordering him to do it.
For the accusation, this testimony was essential for the reversal of the case. The prosecutor Edson de Souza will appeal the decision. In his closing remarks, the prosecutor said that the missioner, “who was so persecuted in life” was “being insulted in death”. The prosecutor maintained the accusation of aggravated homicide against Moura. He affirmed that the crime was committed as a result of a promise of payment. And he reported to the court that his family was receiving threats for him to stop the process. “These threats, made through anonymous phone calls, have been going on for about a year,” said Souza.
In 2005, after becoming imprisoned, Rayfran had confessed to the Federal Police that the rancher Bida had offered him R$10,000 if he would assume sole responsibility for the crime and clear the name of Amair Feijoli da Cunha, supposed intermediary of the rancher Bida.
One of the arguments used by the defense in the new trial was that the accused was being persecuted as a result of pressure from the media, the government, and international NGOs. The lawyer Eduardo Imbiriba even accused Dorothy of inciting violence in the region of Anapu, where the missioner was assassinated.
The death of the sister has had international repercussions and has become a landmark of Brazilian agrarian conflict. Dorothy, defender of human rights who worked in the area of agrarian conflicts, was killed by gunshots in Anapu, 300 kilometers from the capital of Pará, on February 12, 2005. The North-American missioner had worked with the social movements in Pará for 40 years.
More death threats
Three hundred people who live in the interior of the state of Pará are being threatened with death for having denounced cases of human trafficking, sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, and pedophilia.
The number was announced by the bishop of the Diocese of Ilha de Marajó in Pará, Dom José Luiz Azcona, in an extra-ordinary meeting of the Council for the Defense of the Rights of Human Beings (CDDPH). He is one of the four religious figures threatened with death in the state.
Azcona affirmed that the government of Pará, despite knowing this figure, still has not taken measures for reducing these incidences. “I do not worry as much about my own personal security. If there are 300 men and women marked by death, this indicates a society that is sick, poor, and dying,” he criticized.
According to the bishop, barely 100 of those threatened by death are under the protection of the federal government. “There has to be a change in mentality, a conversion. [It is necessary] to look at the Amazon as the Amazon is, not with the eyes of Brasilia .” The bishop further added that there is knowledge of and tacit approval by the local authorities in cases of “prostitution, trafficking and consumption of drugs, and the use of alcoholic beverages among youth.” (with information from Agência Brasil)
Source: Brasil de fato, May 7, 2008
Public Prosecutors Investigate Witness in Dorothy Stang Case
JOÃO CARLOS MAGALHÃES of Agência Folha, in Belém
The Public Prosecutors of Pará will conduct a civil inquiry to investigate if Amair Feijoli da Cunha, also known as Tato, condemned and imprisoned for serving as an intermediary in the assassination of missioner Dorothy Stang in 2005, changed his testimony in the case in exchange for approximately R$100,000.
Tato testified last Monday, clearing the rancher Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, also known as Bida, of being the one who ordered the crime. Bida was pronounced innocent on May 6, 2008, of the accusation of double aggravated homicide—he was suspected of having offered R$50 thousand to have Dorothy Stang killed on February 12, 2005.
For Edson de Souza, the prosecutor who led the accusation, the testimony of Tato was essential in Bida’s innocent verdict by 5 votes to 2 in theGrand Jury Court.
In his own trial in April of 2006, when he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for his involvement in the crime, Tato incriminated Bida, saying that Bida had, in fact, sought him out to arrange for someone to kill the missioner.
But last Monday, as a witness, Tato changed what he had said a little over two years ago. Despite this, he confirmed the supposed authenticity of the video presented by the defense in the Grand Jury. The recording, made in October of 2006, showed him saying that Bida had not ordered the death of anyone.
In the trial of last Monday, crying, Tato said that he had been coerced to say that the rancher had been the one who ordered the assassination and that he could now tell the truth since he had become an evangelical.
The suspicion of the public prosecutor’s office comes from the fact that in 2006, on the eve of the trial of Tato, his wife Elizabete Coutinho, had confirmed receiving, for the payment of debts, close to R$100,000 from Bida.
“And after Tato was condemned, he had nothing more to lose,” affirmed the prosecutor Souza. “Why not change his testimony in exchange for money?” He added that it was just a few months later when the video in which the intermediary clears Bida of guilt was recorded.
In an interview with the Folha, Bida confirmed that he made the payment on that occasion and that it was negotiated and paid in installments by one of his brothers. But he also affirmed that the money was for the payment of oxen that Tato had given him as part of the payment for land in the region of Anapu in Pará.
“The prosecutors had even told Tato that he should have considered the leniency program because he would never again receive my money”, said Bida.
Souza said he was surprised by the appearance of the video, annexed to the files of legal documents the previous week, and that until then he had not known of its existence. The recording of the video, made while the intermediary was still in prison, did not have judicial authorization.
He also questioned why the video had not been shown in May of 2007, when, in his first trial, Bida was condemned to 30 years. For the prosecutor, this could be related to a supposed negotiation with Tato.
The lawyer of the rancher affirmed that he had already known of the recording and that it had not been used in 2007 because, during the questioning of witnesses, Tato affirmed the innocence of Bida. Souza refuted, “However, the confirmation of Bida’s guilt by Tato was one of the principle reasons Bida received the maximum penalty.”
Despite these contrary results, the prosecutor, who has already participated in more than 500 sessions of the Grand Jury, did not cast doubt on the impartiality of the jurors, affirming that they were only responding to what had been presented to them.
Source: Folha de SP, May 8, 2008
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