Costa Rica sentences man to 22 years for murdering indigenous leader

A Costa Rican court sentenced a man to 22 years behind bars on Wednesday for the murder of an indigenous leader in a 2020 land dispute, a case that has stoked decades-old tensions between native communities and farmers over disputed territory.

A Costa Rican court sentenced a man to 22 years behind bars on Wednesday for the murder of an indigenous leader in a 2020 land dispute, a case that has stoked decades-old tensions between native communities and farmers over disputed territory. Farmer Juan Varela shot from behind and killed Broran indigenous leader Yehry Rivera, the court ruled, during a confrontation over land in the Terraba community, 80 miles (130 km) southeast of the capital San Jose in Puntarenas province.

At the end of the 1970s, the Costa Rican government granted land ownership to indigenous communities in areas mostly in the south of the Central American country. Many farmers, however, also claim to be the legitimate owners of territories their families had tended for generations.

The judges in the case ruled that Varela, who claims to have indigenous blood, did not act in self defense, as argued by his lawyers. "I was the one who killed him," Varela said to cheers and applause at a local community meeting last August, comments that were recorded and used as evidence in the trial.

Varela will have the opportunity to appeal the sentence in coming days. The homicide followed the unsolved assassination of another indigenous leader a year prior in the neighboring territory of Salitre.

The social conflict has been exacerbated after more than 40 years of occupations of indigenous territories by non-indigenous Costa Ricans, which has led to "systematic violence" by some farmers, the United Nations has said.

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