Donald Salmon Melendez, Ernesto Centeno, Jose Bryan Quesada Cubillo and Hector Martin Cash Lopez were found guilty of murdering sea turtle conservationist Jairo Mora back in May 2013; they were sentenced to prison back in March 2016 and this sentence was finally confirmed this Friday, December 23.

The decision was taken by the Sentence Appeals Court of San Jose.

The four men received 35 years of prison for murder, but due to the fact that they were also found guilty of other crimes such as aggravated robbery, rape and deprivation of personal freedom (for another case that was tried at the same time), the sentence added up to 87 years of prison for Centeno and Quesada and 79 years to Donald Salmon; while Cash Lopez was sentenced to a total of 90 years of prison since he was also found guilty of rape (in a different case). However all terms will be adjusted to 50 years in prison since that is the maximum the Costa Rican law allows.

The other three defendants in this case, William Delgado Loaiza, Felipe Arauz and Darwin Salmon Mendez were acquitted in May due to lack of evidence.

Jairo Mora was a sea turtle conservationist in the area of Moin in the province of Limon, the night of the murder, May 30, 2013 according to the version given during the trial, he was heading back from the beach with four friends when they were approached by masked men with the intention of robbing them, however, when they realized it was Mora, who was someone they had previous problems with because of his efforts to avoid poaching, they tortured him, hit him, they took his clothes off, tied him to the back bumper of a car and dragged him through the beach, until he died by asphyxiation caused by the sand.