It was three more months preventive prison for the seven suspects in the high profile assassination of 26-year-old conservationist Jairo Mora. They were arrested July 31, 2013, two months after Mora’s body was found on a bleak Limón beach. He and other environmentalists had been kidnapped the night before Mora’s body was found.
Prosecutors say the seven belong to a group of really bad actors, connected with a string of robberies, sexual assaults and turtle egg traffic. The latter was the reason for the cold-blooded killing of young Mora, prosecutors say.
One of the group named Arauz claims to have a bone ailment and now mobilizes himself in a wheelchair — he demanded that the court appoint a medical examiner.’Prosecutors say that only 10 days before the murder, the group participated in in the sexual assault on a girl.
In an unusual twist to this case, her assailant’s trial may hinge on smell — the fragrance she recognize from her assailant that matches his after shave lotion found when they investigated his lodgings. The victim was presented six different lotions to sniff. The defense attorney for the group, Yorleny Ching, was not pleased by the test.
But most of the trial will revolve around around turtle eggs. Theft of the eggs, illegal to collect for sell because they are an endangered species, that Mora an his group were protecting. The prosecution will say that the murder motive was because Limón gangs consider gathering illegal turtle eggs their private preserve.
Limón beaches have long been the private domain of turtle nest robbers, most of whom deal in drugs as well. For a long time, Limón police turned a blind eye to the traffic Ironically, the publicity given to the murder, the country’s first eco-terrorism, focused attention on the traffic when it motive was likely to have been to frighten off environmentalists.
Article by iNews.co.cr
