|
For Immediate
Release
Sentence
of Killer of Sister of Notre Dame
de Namur
Upheld in Retrial
Cincinnati
OH – October 23, 2007 – During retrial proceedings held yesterday in Pará,
Brazil, a presiding judge and jury of seven unanimously upheld the 2006
conviction of Raifran Das Neves Sales for the murder of Sister of Notre Dame de
Namur Dorothy Stang.
Sister
Dorothy was a native of Dayton, and belonged to the Ohio Province of the Sisters
of Notre Dame de Namur, which is headquartered in Cincinnati.
Sister
Dorothy was gunned down in 2005 while walking along a dirt road in Anapu, Pará,
Brazil. At the time of her
death, the Sister of Notre Dame de Namur was working with the Project for
Sustainable Development (PDS), a government initiative created through Brazil's
national institute for agrarian reform (INCRA), which helps landless families
benefit from sustainable farming systems. The land was granted for the farms by
the government, but was highly coveted by the powerful ranchers.
The
area where Sister Dorothy was murdered, called “Esperança,” has since been
reserved as a project of sustainable development. The 73-year-old Sister of Notre Dame de Namur stood with
farmers as they defended themselves against the ranchers and loggers who were
evicting them from their land.
Raifran
is one of five men accused of involvement in the crime.
Three besides Raifran have been convicted and are serving sentences.
Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, a rancher who was convicted of murder and
sentenced to 30 years in prison earlier this year, has been granted an appeal,
which will take place in 2008.
Sisters
of Notre Dame de Namur Kathryne Webster and Jane Dwyer who worked with Sister
Dorothy and continue her work in Anapu, in Brazil said:
“We are grateful for the just outcome of this trial, appreciative of
the competent work of our lawyers and the state justice system, and are
confident that the retrial of Vitalmiro will produce the same result.
A priority for the Sisters of Notre Dame is also that Regivaldo Pereira
Galvão, accused as the principal author and financer of this heinous crime,
will be brought to justice in the same manner in early 2008.”
Sister
Dorothy is among the 776 people murdered over the past 30 years for land-related
reasons in the Brazilian state of Pará, the location of much of the Amazon
rainforest. During the
same three decades, only three others were convicted of land-related murders in
Pará, but none were given jail terms.
“Dorothy’s legacy continues,”
said Sister of Notre Dame de Namur Congregational Leader Camilla Burns, the
community’s international leader. “The
people with whom she lived and for whom she died, fortified by her friendship,
continue their work – and hers – for the protection of vulnerable people and
the vulnerable environment. Dorothy
lives!”
About
the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur
The
Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur are an international congregation founded in
Amiens, France in 1804. Today, 1,600 Sisters serve in 34 states throughout the
United
States
and in England, Belgium, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Congo-Kinshasa,
South Africa, Nicaragua, Peru and Brazil. Eighteen
Sisters are in Brazil.
The
Ohio Province, which is headquartered in Cincinnati, was established on October
31, 1840 and is the first Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur community in the United
States.
Sisters
of Notre Dame de Namur change lives by making known God’s goodness.
Throughout the world, they are committed to education and take a stand
with the poor, especially women and children in the most abandoned places.
##
Contact:
Sister Elizabeth Bowyer, SNDdeN
513-679-8161 |
