ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil, June 15 (Reuters) – Police have found human remains in the search for British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira after two fishermen confessed to killing them in the Amazon rainforest. said the Brazilian Minister of Justice on Wednesday.
“I have just been informed by the federal police that human remains were found at the site of the excavations.” Minister Anderson Torres said on Twitter.
Federal police will hold a press conference in Manaus at 7.30pm local time (11:30 pm GMT).
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The two suspects confessed to killing and dismembering the two men, who disappeared on June 5, TV Globo previously reported, citing police sources.
Police identified the suspects as fisherman Amarildo da Costa, known as “Pelado”, who was arrested last week on gun charges, and his brother Oseney da Costa, 41, or “Dos Santos”. who was arrested Tuesday night. Read more
The family of the suspects has denied having played a role in the disappearance of the men. The public advocates representing the brothers could not be contacted immediately for comment.
Reports suggest a sad conclusion to a case that has raised global alarm, hung over President Jair Bolsonaro at a regional summit and raised concerns in the British Parliament on Wednesday.
Phillips, a freelance journalist who has written for the Guardian and the Washington Post, was investigating a book about the trip with Pereira, a former chief of isolated and recently contacted tribes at the federal Indigenous affairs agency Funai.
They were in a remote area of the jungle near the border with Colombia and Peru called the Javari Valley, which is home to the largest number of uncontacted indigenous people in the world. The area has been invaded by fishermen, hunters, loggers and illegal miners, and police call it a key route for drug trafficking.
The brothers were seen gathering in the Itacoai River just moments after Phillips and Pereira passed away on June 5, returning to the riparian city of Atalaia do Norte, a federal police witness said in a report seen by Reuters.
The police report said witnesses heard Pereira say he had received threats from Amarildo da Costa. A former official of the Funai Indigenous Affairs Agency, Pereira had been instrumental in stopping the illegal gold mining and fishing of poachers in rivers inhabited by indigenous Javari tribes.
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Report by Jake Spring and Bruno Kelly Additional report by Peter Frontini and Steven Grattan in São Paulo and Pedro Fonseca in Rio de Janeiro Written by Anthony Boadle Editing by Brad Haynes, Diane Craft and Leslie Adler
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