World

Third man arrested in Amazon, murder of journalist and activist


RIO DE JANEIRO – A third person was arrested on Saturday in connection with the murders of a British journalist and a Brazilian expert on indigenous peoples who went missing deep in the Amazon forest nearly two weeks ago, police said. said before sharing the macabre details of how the pair were murdered.

The disappearances of Dom Phillips, 57, a freelance journalist, and Bruno Araújo Pereira, 41, a former government official who worked in the area to combat illegal fishing, hunting and mining, prompted a 10-day search followed by a dense manhunt in Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest.

An analysis of human remains discovered in the area earlier this week identified them as those of Mr Phillips and Mr Pereira.

Mr. Phillips was shot in the chest, federal police said in a statement on Saturday, adding that Mr. Pereira was shot in the head and stomach. According to a police statement, the men were killed by a “gun with common hunting ammunition”.

Jefferson da Silva Lima turned himself in at the Atalaia do Norte police station in the Amazon on Saturday, after initially evading an arrest warrant. Authorities had previously arrested brothers Amarildo and Oseney da Costa de Oliveira in connection with the two men’s disappearance.

Earlier this week, Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira confessed to killing the men and led police to their burial site in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest.

By Saturday night, none of the three men arrested had been charged.

Witnesses saw the de Oliveira brothers on a boat following Phillips and Pereira shortly before they disappeared into a remote river, according to investigative documents seen by the New York Times. Earlier in the day, the brothers threatened a group including Mr Phillips and Mr Pereira by showing them guns, according to the Univaja Indigenous group.

Mr Phillips and Mr Pereira were last seen on June 5, while sailing on the Itaquaí River in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, near the borders with Peru and Colombia.

Mr. Phillips went to an Indigenous reserve in the Javari Valley to interview Indigenous patrols that crack down on illegal fishing and hunting there. Mr. Pereira helped create those patrols and his work has made him an enemy of the area’s criminal fishermen, poachers and miners. Mr. Phillips had been working on a book during the trip, and the two men were returning home when they disappeared.



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