On October 27th, a group of rangers will meet at the Presidential House in order to request pardon for Mauricio Steller, a man who was sentenced in 2015 by an apparent attempted murder against an alleged wildlife trafficker.
We will have a meeting at the Presidential House to issue the pardon. It is painful for us, it is a bad precedent for rangers because it takes away the strength to act quickly and intelligently,
declared Roberto Molina, Secretary General of the Union of Workers of the Ministry of Environment.
The event occurred in September 2009 when in Playa Karate, in Puerto Jiménez, Steller had an argument with some subjects who were looking for turtle eggs. Later the official shot a man and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Molina noted that on August 24th, during the National Parks’ Day, they made the request to President Luis Guillermo Solís, as the union considers it is and unfair sentence. In fact, since 2015, the Conservationist Federation of Costa Rica (FECON) supported the initiative because they felt that Steller acted in self-defense.