Brazil gunman gets 27 yrs in US nun murder retrial

BRASILIA, Oct 23 (Reuters) - A jury in Brazil unanimously upheld a 27-year sentence late on Monday against the gunman who killed U.S.-born nun and human rights activist Dorothy Stang in a land dispute in the Amazon rain forest in February 2005.

Under Brazilian law defendants convicted to sentences beyond 20 years have the right to a second trial with a different jury.

Stang lived for more than 20 years in Anapu town in the frontier state of Para, helping peasants threatened by loggers and ranchers and opposing the destruction of the rain forest.

She was shot six times and left lying in the mud.

The gunman, Rayfran das Neves, denied during the full-day trial that ended close to midnight on Monday that he was hired to kill Stang and said he shot her because he had felt threatened by her, according to the court.

The jury voted 7-0 against him.

Initially das Neves implicated Vitalmiro Bastos Moura and another rancher, saying they gave him 50,000 reais ($24,742) and the gun he used to kill Stang.

Prosecutor Edson Cardoso said das Neves's new testimony was an attempt to exonerate the ranchers.

"No half-way intelligent person is going to believe that an elderly person -- and (das Neves) confessed she reached into her bag for a bible -- could have threatened him," said Cardoso.

Bastos Moura was sentenced to 30 years in prison in May.

Two accomplices of das Neves have been convicted and sentenced to prison terms of 17 years and 18 years respectively.

Police and army troops have been patrolling in and around Amapu since the Stang murder. But violent land conflicts continue in much of the vast Amazon region.