BRASILIA, Dec. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Two men in Brazil were found guilty on Saturday of murdering American nun and rain forest activist Dorothy Stang in a contract killing.

    Stang, 73, was shot six times on a jungle track on Feb. 12 in the state of Para. A native of Dayton, Ohio, she had devoted the last 30 years of her life fighting for peasant land rights, thus arousing hatred among land owners in Brazil's lawless Amazon frontier.

    A judge in the Amazon city of Belem convicted ranch worker Raifran das Neves Sales of shooting Stang and sentenced to 27 years in prison while his accomplice, Clodoaldo Carlos Batista, got a prison term of 17 years.

    The prosecution said the murder was ordered for 22,000 US dollars by local ranchers, whose interests were threatened by Stang's work.

    Three ranchers have been accused of ordering the killing, but are appealing the charges.

    Many believe that the Stang case has become a test of Brazil's will to combat land-related killings responsible for the deaths ofmore than 1,300 peasants and activists in the past 30 years in thelargest country in Latin America. Enditem