A rare conviction for the slaying of a Latin American environmentalist https://t.co/pWKmxViq8Y pic.twitter.com/UU38KiCOLj

— LatinAmericanScience (@LatAmSci) April 5, 2016

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From 2010 to 2014, more than 450 activists were killed in Latin America. [Emphasis added.] Arrests and convictions are rare. Last year in Costa Rica, the men accused of killing the 26-year-old Mora, as well as kidnapping and robbing four foreign volunteers, were acquitted by a court.

But in the surprise last week, the men — Héctor Cash, Ernesto Centeno, José Bryan Quesada and Donald Salmón — were found guilty after prosecutors filed an appeal in the case, which is allowed by the Costa Rican legal system, unlike that of the United States. The four could serve up to 70 years in prison

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