Shortly before the press conference, the Minister of Justice of Brazil, Anderson Torres, said in a tweet that the Federal Police has extracted “human remains”, which will be subjected to forensic investigation.
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. The first suspect 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.
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 before Wednesday’s confession that Philips and Pereira’s activities were “reckless” and suggested that if they had been “killed,” the bodies were reported missing in the Javari River.
CNN’s Kara Fox and Juliana Koch contributed to this report.