DaytonDailyNews.com

May 14, 2007

BELEM, Brazil — It is more than two years since Dorothy Stang was killed, and the trials for the mandantes — the two wealthy ranchers charged with ordering the hit — seem unconscionably delayed.

Finally, Vitalmiro Moura, the man everyone calls Bida, is going on trial. Stang's supporters are nervous, and they have good reason to be. None of the mandantes has ever been convicted in more than 700 land-grab killings since 1974.

The lead defense attorney is the Johnnie Cochran of Brazil, a man with a reputation for getting anybody off. Americo Leal won acquittals for the militia accused of gunning down 19 farmers from the Eldorado dos Carajas region of Para during a 1996 demonstration by the Landless Workers Movement.

With his long, unruly gray beard and intense unsmiling gaze, Leal's presence is as striking as the Guernica-scale painting that dominates the courtroom, portraying a blindfolded Lady Justice, flanked by Moses holding the Ten Commandments and a prayerful Jesus Christ. A three-foot metal crucifix hangs on the right near the defense bench.

When they're not on the stand, the defense attorneys saunter up and down the aisles like Masters of the Universe.

Even though he spent the past two years in jail, their client oozes the same confidence. He shakes his finger at prosecutor Edson Cardoso as if he's the one doing the accusing.

"I've never been given my right to explain what happened," Bida tells Cardoso. He denies involvement in the killing.

Cardoso demands to know why Bida didn't call the police when the gunmen came to his ranch.

"You let them into your home even though you knew they killed a 73-year-old nun?" Cardoso queries. "Why didn't you go to the police and have them arrested?"

"The phone wasn't working," Bida replies.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com.