7 alleged poachers to stand trial Monday for Costa Rica conservationist’s murder

Starting at 8 a.m. Monday, seven alleged poachers will stand trial in a Limón court for the murder last year of 26-year-old Costa Rican sea turtle conservationist Jairo Mora.

The seven men are accused of kidnapping Mora along with four foreign volunteers on Moín Beach, near Limón on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, during the night of May 31, 2013. The volunteers escaped, but police found Mora’s naked and bruised body the next morning face down in the sand. The defendants, 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.

Rodrigo Araya, a lawyer for Mora’s family, confirmed to crhoy.com that prosecutors will seek the maximum penalty for all seven defendants – 35 years for Mora’s murder and 15 years for the assaulting the four women. A verdict on the case is expected by early December.