A suspect arrested for the disappearance of a British journalist and expert on Brazilian indigenous affairs has admitted to killing the couple in a remote region of the Amazon, Brazilian authorities told a news conference on Wednesday.
Brazilian Federal Police identified the suspect as Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira. Police said they confessed Tuesday night and indicated where their bodies had been buried. The next day, the suspect took the police to the area where they were allegedly killed.
According to Federal Police Representative Eduardo Alexandre Fontes, police are currently excavating the area and have found human remains, which will be sent to Brasilia for forensic analysis on Thursday.
Archive photo of Javari Valley, Amazon, Brazil February 15, 2016. (CNN)
Veteran correspondent Dom Phillips and Brazilian researcher Bruno Araújo Pereira disappeared on June 5 during a trip to the Javari Valley at the western end of the state of Amazonas.
They were last seen in the community of Sao Rafael, a two-hour boat ride from the city of Atalaia do Norte, after accompanying an indigenous patrol on the Itaquai River organized to prevent the invasions of fishermen and hunters. In the indigenous land of the Javari Valley.
Police arrested a second suspect in connection with the missing men on Tuesday, according to a Federal Police press release. Amarildo was arrested last week.
Police said the second suspect, a 41-year-old man, was being questioned and would be taken to a custody hearing in city court. They also said they seized a firearm cartridge and a trowel, which will be analyzed.
Phillips and Pereira disappeared while investigating a book project on conservation efforts in the region, which authorities have described as “complicated” and “dangerous” and known to host illegal miners, loggers and international traffickers. of drugs.
They had reportedly received death threats a few days before his disappearance.
His case has drawn worldwide attention to the dangers that journalists and environmental activists in Brazil often face.
Indigenous groups are searching for British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous affairs specialist Bruno Pereira on the Itaquai River in the Javari Valley in Brazil on Thursday. (CNN)
Between 2009 and 2019, more than 300 people were killed in Brazil amid land and resource conflicts in the Amazon, according to Human Rights Watch, citing data from the Pastoral Land Commission, a nonprofit affiliated with the Amazon. ‘Catholic Church.
And in 2020, Global Witness ranked Brazil as the fourth most dangerous country for environmental activism, based on documented killings of environmentalists. Nearly three-quarters of those attacks in Brazil took place in the Amazon region, he said.
Phillips had reported extensively on the most marginalized groups in Brazil and on the destruction that criminal actors are causing in the Amazon.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has criticized the couple’s trip since his disappearance, saying in a YouTube interview ahead of Wednesday’s confession that Philips and Pereira’s activities were “reckless” and suggested that if they had been “killed,” the bodies would have disappeared into the Javari River.
In a statement after Wednesday’s press conference, Phillips’ wife, Alessandra Sampaio, thanked those involved in the research efforts.
He acknowledged that the suspect’s confession “puts an end to the anguish of not knowing Dom and Bruno’s whereabouts”, but added that his “search for justice” was still going on.
“I hope the investigations exhaust all possibilities and provide definitive answers on all relevant details as soon as possible,” he said.
“We will only have peace when the necessary measures are taken so that tragedies like this never happen again.”