Murder trial set for Oct. 27 for suspects in slaying of Costa Rican conservationist Jairo Mora

Seven men accused of killing Costa Rican sea turtle conservationist Jairo Mora last year will stand trial on Oct. 27, the Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to The Tico Times today. The trial, open to the public, will be held at a court in Limón on the country’s Caribbean coast, near where the murder took place.

The seven men, alleged poachers, are accused of kidnapping Mora along with four foreign volunteers at Moín Beach, near Limón, during the night of May 31, 2013. The volunteers escaped, but police found Mora’s naked and bruised body the next morning. The suspects, Felipe Arauz, Héctor Cash, Ernesto Enrique Centeno, William Delgado, José Bryan Quesada and brothers Darwin and Donald Alberto Salmón, have been in preventive detention since their arrests in July 2013.