Brazilian to face retrial in nun's killing

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 12 (UPI) -- A Brazilian rancher accused of arranging the 2005 killing of an American nun in the Amazon region will face a retrial, authorities said.

Vitalmiro Bastos Moura was convicted and sentenced to 38 years in prison in a 2007 trial for the murder of Dorothy Stang, but was acquitted in a 2008 retrial, the BBC reported Monday.

Moura was suspected of bribing a witness to change his testimony in the second trial, and a court ordered him held pending a second retrial, the BBC said.

Moura is charged with hiring two hit men to shoot Stang, 73, in the Amazon state of Para. Both men have confessed and named Moura as the man who hired them, the BBC said.

Stang worked in the Amazon region for 30 years to preserve the rainforest and protect rights of rural workers against large-scale farmers trying to take their lands.

She was shot in the town of Anapu in Para, a frontier state that has suffered massive deforestation at the hands of loggers and ranchers, the BBC said.