Irene Lôbo
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - Three individuals suspected of Saturdays's (12) pistol killing of 76 year-old American missionary, Dorothy Stang, at the Esperança ("Hope") settlement in the northern Brazilian state of Pará, have had their preventive detention decreed. Two were named as assailants and the other as author of the crime.

Stang was a missionary with the Catholic Church's Land Pastoral Commission and ran the Project of Sustained Development in an area authorized by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra). The nun had worked in the region for over 20 years, was a defender of human rights, and fought against squatters in the region.

Pará is one of the states in which land disputes and environmental problems are most common in Brazil.

The national president of the Workers' Party (PT), José Genoino, informed that, at the request of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Federal Police reinforced its presence at the crime site.

Translation: David Silberstein