After shooting and wounding two policemen and remaining entrenched for several hours in his home, in Pijije de Bagaces, Guanacaste, David Stewart Postel, 69, turned himself to the authorities at dawn this Friday.
Jaime Sibaja, a spokesperson for the Ministerio Publico confirmed that the American and naturalized Costa Rican, gave himself up to police shortly before 1:00 am and is in the custody of the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ), a condition the man had requested for turning himself in.
Apparently, Stewart got into a shootout with officers of the Fuerza Publica responding to an incident reported on the farm which he owned.
According to the version of his lawyer, Carlos Alberto Echeverría, to the press, on Thursday afternoon, Stewart went to his farm to kick out a group of about 50 people who had entered the property illegally, to bathe in a water hole located on his property
The lawyer said his client told him that the people had called the police. He explained that when the police arrived at the site, they asked him for a copy of his weapons permit, his identification and then it seemed that the officer told him to hand over the gun and he refused, he was on his property and in the right.
Echeverría assured that one of the officers took out his regulation weapon and Stewart felt threatened.
“What he (the officer) did was draw on him and he (Stewart) defended himself. He fired on the cops when, according to him, the police tried to shoot him (…),” said the lawyer.
In the shootout, the two police officers, Douglas Mora Muñoz and Gerardo Aguilar, were hit twice, Stewart was injured in the leg. This morning, one of the police officers was released from hospital, the other continues in serious condition.
According to the lawyer, his client holed up in his property until he (the lawyer) arrived and authorities would agree to his condition that the OIJ would take into custody and would guarantee his safety and the presence of the Minister of Security, Micheal Soto.
“He turned himself in around midnight, after making sure that another lawyer and I were there to guarantee his physical integrity. He was afraid they (the police) were going to kill him,” said Echeverría.
