Search for journalist and expert in Amazon becomes homicide investigation

Americas
By Editor_1
British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous activist Bruno Pereira went missing in early June -  Joédson Alves/EPA
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By André Spigariol, Ana Ionova and Jack Nicas

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian authorities said Tuesday (14) that they had arrested a second man in the disappearance of a British journalist and a Brazilian expert on Indigenous people deep in the Amazon, confirming that their efforts were shifting from a search-and-rescue operation to a homicide investigation.

Brazilian federal police said they had arrested Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, the brother of a fisherman who was detained last week. Witnesses saw de Oliveira and his brother, Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, in a boat just behind the missing men shortly before they were last seen on a remote river more than a week ago, according to investigative documents viewed by The New York Times. Police said that both suspects were being held in a murder investigation, but they had not been charged.

The missing men — Dom Phillips, 57, a freelance writer for British news organization The Guardian, and Bruno Pereira, 41, an expert who worked extensively in the region — were last seen June 5 while travelling in a boat on the Itaquaí River in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, near the borders with Peru and Colombia. Phillips was reporting on patrol teams that Pereira had helped create to crack down on illegal fishing and hunting, an initiative that had led to threats against Pereira.

Their disappearance has transfixed Brazil, drawn search crews from the military and Indigenous groups to scour a remote section of the rainforest and forced President Jair Bolsonaro to defend his government’s response in front of other world leaders at an international summit in Los Angeles last week.

On Monday (13), Univaja, a local Indigenous association that worked with Pereira and helped organize the search operations, said those searches would soon end. That news, along with police’s confirmation of a murder investigation, underscored that the case was no longer focused on finding Phillips and Pereira alive, but rather on figuring out who may have killed them.

“The chances that they are found alive are now practically zero,” said Manuel Chorimpa Marubo, a local Indigenous leader who has aided the searches with Univaja. “The hope now is finding the bodies.”

On Tuesday, Brazil’s federal police sent a report to the nation’s Supreme Court summarizing their evidence. In the report, which was viewed by the Times, police said that just after a local resident saw Phillips and Pereira on the morning of June 5, the witness saw Oseney da Costa de Oliveira rowing a small boat in the river. The witness then helped tow de Oliveira to another boat, where his brother, Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, was waiting.

Police said last week that witnesses had seen Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira travelling in his green speedboat with a visible Nike symbol just behind Phillips and Pereira that same day.

The day before, Univaja said, Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira had threatened a group that included Phillips and Pereira by showing them a gun. Federal police said in the report Tuesday that Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira had previously threatened Pereira and had fired a gun at the building of a government agency tasked with protecting Indigenous groups, according to the report. Police have said they are testing blood found on Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira’s boat.

Brazilian authorities said Sunday (12) that items belonging to Phillips and Pereira, including clothing and a backpack, had been found in the area where they disappeared. They said they had also found “apparently human organic matter” near where the men were last seen and were testing it for DNA. The organic matter is a human stomach, the federal police report viewed by the Times said.

Illegal activity in the region, which includes an Indigenous reserve roughly the size of Maine, has flourished in recent years as government authorities have retreated, officials at Univaja said. Bolsonaro, an unabashed supporter of developing the Amazon, has dismantled environmental protections and slashed the budgets of the agencies responsible for policing the forest.

-New York Times

 

 

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