Suspect confesses shooting and killing British journalist and Brazilian guide, leading police to body

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According to Brazilian police investigators, the main suspects in the investigation of missing British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira confessed to killing the man.

The suspect, 41-year-old fisherman Amalido da Costa de Oliveira, locally known as “Perado”, led police to the body, but has not yet been officially identified.

According to police, the second suspect, Amalido’s brother, Osenida Costa de Riuler (also known as “Dos Santos”) denied involvement.

Amalid was arrested on June 8. His brother Osny was arrested on June 14.

Phillips and Pereira were last seen on June 5 in a remote location in the Amazon rainforest during a book research trip that Phillips was working on.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Brazilian police said Amalido, who had collided with Pereira in a fight against illegal fishing in indigenous territory, confessed that he had killed Phillips and Pereira with firearms, buried their bodies and sank their boats. ..

Amalid led police to a remote burial site, where the body was excavated. Police will retrieve the boat on Thursday.

Federal police foreman Eduardo Alexandre Fontes said the body was “3.1 kilometers”. [1.86 miles] Deep in the forest. “

He also said the remains would be sent to the National Institute of Criminology in Brasília on Thursday for identification.

Regarding the boat, Fontes said, “They put a bag of soil on her and sank. They took out the engine and sank the engine.”

The news has sounded a global alarm and hung on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at the regional summit, drawing harsh conclusions on the case that aroused concern in the British Parliament.

Phillips, a freelance reporter who wrote for the Guardian and the Washington Post, was studying the book on a trip with Pereira, a former chief of an isolated and recently contacted tribe of the Federal Indigenous Peoples Agency Funai.

They were in a remote jungle area called the Jabari Valley, home to the world’s largest uncontacted people, near the border between Colombia and Peru. The area has been invaded by illegal fishermen, hunters, loggers and miners, and police call the area an important route for drug trafficking.

The Costa brothers were seen meeting on the Itakoai River shortly after Phillips and Pereira passed by on June 5, and headed for the riverside town of Atalaia de Norte, witnesses said in a report reviewed by Reuters. I told the police.

Police reported that witnesses heard Pereira being threatened by Amarildo.

Bolsonaro on Wednesday suggested that Phillips made an enemy by writing about environmental issues.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Lily Chow

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Lily Zhou is a freelance writer who mainly covers the British news of The Epoch Times.

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