Trial of suspects accused of assassinating Guarani leader postponed

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The trial of three men accused of killing the Guarani Indian leader Marcos Veron of Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazil, has been postponed.

The trial was supposed to take place this week, but was delayed as Josephino Ujacow, the lawyer of one of the defendants, has allegedly commenced a twenty-day period of psychotherapy.

Marcos Veron, a well-known and internationally respected Guarani leader, was killed in 2003 after his community reoccupied its ancestral land of Takuara, which had been taken over by ranchers.

Veron said about Takuara, ‘This here is my life, my soul. If 
you take me away from this land, you take my life’.

The defendants, Estevão Romero, Carlos Roberto dos Santos and Jorge Cristaldo Insabralde, employees of the ranch which occupied the land of Veron’s community, are accused of homicide, false imprisonment, procedural fraud, gang formation and illegal coercion. A fourth suspect, Nivaldo Alves de Oliveira, has fled to avoid being tried.

The Attorney General’s office said of Veron’s killers, ‘Armed with guns, they threatened, beat and shot at the Indigenous leaders. Veron, then 72, was taken to hospital with serious head injuries, where he died’.

The trial has been rescheduled for 3rd May and is expected to last a week. The Judge has stated that if any of the defendants’ lawyers do not attend the hearing, it will go ahead anyway and public defenders will step in.

It will take place in São Paulo as the Attorney General’s office decided a jury and judge from Mato Grosso do Sul were highly unlikely to be impartial as ‘there exists strong prejudice against the Indigenous people among important members of Mato Grosso do Sul society’.