Report: Suspect in slaying of US nun in Brazil is back in jail, new trial expected this year
By APSaturday, February 6, 2010
Report: US nun’s alleged Brazilian killer in jail
RIO DE JANEIRO — A rancher accused of masterminding the 2005 killing of an activist American nun in the Amazon is back in jail, a Brazilian television station reported Saturday.
Vitalmiro Moura turned himself in to police in the jungle town of Altamira on Saturday, the Globo television network said, citing an unidentified police spokesman. No one answered repeated telephone calls to the police later Saturday.
Moura is accused of ordering the murder of 73-year-old Dorothy Stang, a native of Dayton, Ohio, who worked for decades as an activist on behalf of poor people seeking small parcels of land to farm.
Moura was convicted in 2007, then acquitted during an automatic retrial in 2008. The acquittal was overturned on a technicality last April. He had been free pending a ruling on a writ of habeas corpus, which a judge rejected Thursday before ordering Moura jailed again.
His next trial is expected sometime this year.
