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Police detain Brazil rancher linked to Stang death

BRASILIA, Brazil – Brazilian police on Friday detained a rancher suspected in the slaying of rain forest activist Dorothy Stang for allegedly illegally acquiring titles to land the U.S. nun died trying to defend.

The detention of Regivaldo Galvao at his home in the Amazon state of Para could lead to the reopening of the case in the death of Stang, who was shot in 2005 amid a dispute with ranchers over land she wanted brought under federal protection.

A police report seen by The Associated Press says Galvao was detained Friday in Altamira after a judge ordered his capture in an investigation into whether he forged titles to land where the 73-year-old nun was killed.

Prosecutors contend that Galvao and another rancher hired men to kill Stang over the disputed Amazon land. Galvao was arrested in 2005, but he was freed on bail by Brazil's Supreme Court in 2006 and he has since used appeals to avoid trial.

Galvao has denied any role in Stang's death, arguing he had no interest in the lands Stang was defending.

But prosecutors say that in November he went before Brazil's Incra land reform agency to present documents showing he owns the disputed land and wants it back — casting doubt on one of his main alibis.

Prosecutor Felicio Pontes told the AP in November that the land where Stang was killed is public property, and if Galvao claimed to own it, the case against him could be reopened.

A second rancher accused in Stang's murder, Vitalmiro Moura, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in May 2007. But Moura's sentence was overturned earlier this year after a gunmen confessed to killing Stang and said he acted alone. Gunman Rayfran das Neves Sales was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

Stang was born in Dayton, Ohio, and spent three decades trying to preserve the rain forest and defending the rights of poor settlers who confronted powerful ranchers seeking their lands in the Amazon's wild frontier.

AP was unable to immediately contact Galvao.

Four men suspect of having murdered Dorothy Stang, a 74-year-old American Catholic nun working in Brazil, have been identified today by the Brazilian police, who did not divulge any name.

The crime happened on Saturday, February 12, at a settlement of 60 landless peasant families, 30 miles from the town of Anapu in the state of Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon. Stang was known to defend peasant farmers who were having disputes with loggers and ranchers.

While ranchers who opposed her called the nun a terrorist, friends and admirers use to call her "the angel of the Trans-Amazon." The settlement where Stang was killed is part of sustainable development project run by the state government. She had been in the area since 1972 and had become a Brazilian citizen..

Loggers and ranchers have been encroaching on the area reserved for the peasants. Stang was known for telling small farmer not to sell or abandon, but to stay in their land and defend their rights,

The murder occurred in front of the land claimed by two property owners, Luis Angaretti and Regivaldo Galvão, known as "Taradão" (the big sex pervert).

Just hours after the nun's killing there was another similar murder. In the more recent case, a worker from a neighboring settlement was shot and killed by eight armed men, According to the police, the man was murdered in front of his wife and five children.

According to Brazilian police, two of the suspects were pistoleiros (hired guns) and the two other were the ones who paid for the murder. Pará's police also revealed that the American nun was killed with eight or nine bullets in the head and the thorax and died before she could be helped.  Earlier information indicated that there were three shots.

Brazil's Human Rights Secretary, Nilmário Miranda, told reporters that the police wanted to wait before naming suspects, but added: "Everything indicates that a local rancher ordered the killing: the gunmen's links, the history of killing contracts in the area."

Saturday, Miranda had indicated that the presumed assassins were two killers known in the region as Eduardo and Fogoio.

Stang's death occurred nine days after she told Miranda that she had received death threats. "They did nothing to protect Dorothy," said Antonio Canuto, a leader of the Pastoral Land Commission, who worked with the American nun. "This government protects only big farmers," he added.
 
Dorothy Stang's body was transported by plane, this Sunday, from Anapu to Belém, the capital of Pará state, a trip of  700 km, in order to undergo an autopsy. She should be buried in Anapu, on Monday.
 
The identification of suspects was possible thanks to the testimony of two people who were with sister Dorothy when she was shot. Both witnesses have been placed under police protection, according to Brazilian authorities. 
 
In July 2004, Stang, who was a member of the Pastoral Land Commission, a Catholic church organization,  had received the prize Pará's Citizen in recognition of her work. She had commented to friends that threats of death had intensified since she got the prize. 
 
Environmental group Greenpeace noted in a communiqué that Sister Dorothy had dedicated half of her life to the cause of the Brazilian landless. Anapu ranchers accused her of supplying guns to peasant farmers, something her friends dismissed as an absurd lie.

According to Greenpeace, there were 1237 murders in Brazil linked to land disputes, between 1985 and 2001. More than 40% of these killings occurred in the state of Pará.





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