San Jose, Sep 19 (Prensa Latina) A Costa Rican court has acquitted Juan Varela Rojas on Thursday, a defendant who confessed to having murdered indigenous leader Jehry Rivera Rivera in February 2020, the Delfino newspaper informed.

The tribunal of the southeastern Perez Zeledon area, of San Jose province, released the accused from charges, after he admitted in a voice recording in 2022 that he killed the member of the Terraba ethnic group in the southeastern region of Puntarenas, the source added.

The Court of Justice ruled hursday in favor of Rojas, citing “doubts” regarding the homicide, during the trial initiated on August 19, the plaintiff’s attorney John Brenes Rodríguez told Delfino.

The defenders of the team that participated in the oral and public debate, the lawyer noted, “feel surprised by this result, which, in no way, does justice to the Rivera family and to the indigenous population of the south of the country in general.”

The attorney recalled that in a first trial in February 2023, the same Court of Perez Zeledon, but with a different line-up, declared the accused Varela responsible for the crime and sentenced him to 22 years in prison.

Brenes argued that the defendant admitted on several occasions, even publicly, his guilt on Rivera’s death, which, “in our criteria and that of the Prosecutor’s Office discarded any hypothesis of legitimate defense,” the attorney underscored.

Ied/omr/lam/apb