Brazilian police say they have arrested a second man in connection with the “alleged murder” of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous defender Bruno Pereira.
Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, 41, was arrested on Tuesday and is being held in Atalaia do Norte, the isolated river town that Phillips and Pereira were trying to reach when they disappeared on Sunday 5 June.
In a statement, federal police said Oliveira, who is known by the nickname “Dos Santos”, had been arrested “on suspicion of being involved in the case” along with his brother Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira. the main suspect, who has been arrested. since last week.
Speaking outside the police station where the two men are now detained, civilian police chief Alex Perez told reporters he had been detained at his home in Atalaia do Norte and had not resisted. the arrest.
“Witnesses placed both of them at the scene where the crime allegedly took place,” said Perez, who was surrounded by federal police officers with rifles.
Asked by the Guardian what specific crime the suspect had been arrested on suspicion, Perez replied: “Supposedly qualified homicide.”
Investigators suspect that Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, known as Pelado, was responsible for ambushing Phillips and Pereira as they descended the Itaquai River on the return from a four-day reporting trip.
Federal police also said a series of bullet casings and an oar had been confiscated while executing two search warrants. Forensic officers were seen arriving at the port of Atlaia do Norte with the oar on Tuesday afternoon, while the search for Phillips and Pereira continued in a flooded piece of forest where indigenous volunteers found several objects of the men on Saturday.
Pelado would have denied any involvement in the disappearances. A report in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo on Tuesday said that during the interrogation he stated that he had not left his home in the riverside village of São Gabriel on the day the men disappeared.
The suspect admitted that he had seen Pereira’s boat on the day of his disappearance, but said that he had only left the next day, when Pelado stated that he was going to hunt pigs in his own boat.
Police sources allege that Pelado was seen chasing Phillips and Pereira downstream in his boat with four other people, whom investigators have tried to identify.