Brazilian federal police said on Saturday that a third suspect in the deaths of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira had been arrested.
The couple disappeared almost two weeks ago; Phillips’ murder was confirmed after forensic examinations; other remains are believed to belong to Pereira.
Police said in a statement that Jefferson da Silva Lima, known as Pelado da Dinha, was handed over to the Atalaia do Norte police station in the Amazon.
A federal police investigator said a suspect confessed to killing Pereira and Phillips in a remote part of the Amazon and took officers to the place where the bodies were buried. (Photo AP / Eraldo Peres)
Police said the suspect will be transferred to a custody hearing.
Two other men are already in jail for alleged involvement in the killings: Amarildo Oliveira, known as Pelado, and his brother, Oseney de Oliveira, known as Dos Santos.
Phillips and Pereira were last seen on June 5 on their boat on the Itaquai River, near the entrance to the indigenous territory of the Javari Valley, which borders Peru and Colombia.
On Friday, federal police said the human remains found in the remote Amazon of Brazil have been identified as belonging to 57-year-old Phillips.
No additional remains have been found at the site near the town of Atalaia do Norte, but they are expected to belong to indigenous expert Pereira, 41.
“The confirmation (of Phillips’ remains) was made based on anthropological dental and forensic examinations,” Federal Police said in a statement.
British journalist Dom Phillips, right, and a Yanomami native walk through the village of Maloca Papiu, Roraima State, Brazil, November 2019. Phillips and indigenous affairs expert Bruno Araujo Pereira have been missing in a remote part of the Amazon region of Brazil, a local Indigenous association said Monday, June 6, 2022. (AP Photo / Joao Laet) (AP)
“Work is underway to fully identify the remains so that the cause of death can be determined, as well as the dynamics of the crime and the concealment of the bodies.”
The remains were found Wednesday, after fisherman Pelado confessed to killing the couple and took police to the spot where he would have buried the bodies. He told officers he used a firearm to commit the crime.
The wreckage had arrived in the capital Brasilia on Thursday for forensic scientists to work.
The area where Phillips and Pereira went missing has seen violent clashes between fishermen, poachers and government agents.