SAO PAULO, June 17 (Reuters) – A forensic examination of human remains found in the Amazon rainforest confirmed on Friday that they belonged to British journalist Dom Phillips, Brazil’s federal police said, adding that a search was under way. to a man suspected of involvement in his murder.
Work is underway to determine the cause of death, police said in a statement.
The remains of a second man believed to be local expert Bruno Pereira are still being analyzed, a CNN Brazil report said earlier on Friday.
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Pereira and Phillips disappeared on June 5 in the remote Havari Valley, bordering Peru and Colombia. Earlier this week, police found human remains from a grave in the jungle where they were led by fisherman Amarildo da Costa Oliveira, who admitted to killing the two men. Read more
Phillips, a freelance reporter who wrote for the Guardian and the Washington Post, was researching a travel book with Pereira, a former head of isolated and recently contacted tribes at the Funai Indigenous Federal Agency.
Police said their investigation suggested there were more people involved outside Oliveira and that they were now looking for a man named Jefferson da Silva Lima.
He is the third suspect named by police in the name of Oliveira and his brother Autumn da Costa, who was detained this week.
“There is an arrest warrant issued by the State Court of Attalia do Norte against Jefferson da Silva Lima, also known as Pelado da Dinya, which has not yet been found,” police said.
Federal police officers carry a coffin containing human remains after a suspect confessed to killing British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and took police to the site of the remains at federal police headquarters in Brazil, Brazil. , 2022. REUTERS / Wesley Marcelino
“Investigations show that the killers acted alone, without bosses or a criminal organization behind the crime.”
However, the local local group Univaja, which played a leading role in the search, said: “The brutality of the crime shows that Pereira and Phillips have crossed paths with a powerful criminal organization that has tried to cover its tracks during the investigation. “
It says it has informed the federal police repeatedly since the end of 2021 that there is an organized crime group operating in the Havari Valley.
INA, a union representing Funai workers, shares this view.
“We all know that the violence in the Hawari Valley is linked to a wide range of organized crime,” a separate statement said.
Police said they were still searching for the boat Phillips and Pereira were traveling in when they were last seen alive.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price on Friday called for “responsibility and justice,” saying Phillips and Pereira had been killed in support of protecting tropical forests and indigenous peoples.
“Our condolences to the families of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira … We must collectively step up our efforts to protect environmentalists and journalists,” Price said on Twitter.
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Report by Gabriel Araujo in Sao Paulo, Anthony Baudela in Brazil and Carolina Pulis in Mexico City; Edited by David Alire Garcia, Daniel Wallis and Rosalba O’Brien
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