RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazilian authorities said on Tuesday they had arrested a second man in the disappearance of a British journalist and a Brazilian expert on indigenous peoples deep in the Amazon, confirming that their efforts are shifting from search and rescue operations to homicide investigations.
Brazilian federal police say they arrested Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, the brother of a fisherman who was detained last week. Witnesses saw Mr. de Oliveira and his brother, Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, on a boat shortly after the men went missing shortly before. they were last seen on a distant river over a week ago, according to investigative documents seen by The New York Times. Police say both suspects are being held in a murder investigation, but they have not been charged.
The missing men – Dom Phillips, 57, a freelance writer for the British news organization The Guardian, and Bruno Araújo Pereira, 41, a specialist who has worked extensively in the area – were seen for the first time. last on June 5 while sailing the Itaquaí River in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, near the borders with Peru and Colombia. Mr. Phillips is reporting on the patrols Mr. Pereira helped create to crack down on illegal fishing and hunting, an initiative that has resulted in threats against Mr. Pereira.
Their disappearance swept through Brazil, drawing search teams from the military and Indigenous groups to scour a remote area of the rainforest and forcing President Jair Bolsonaro to defend his government’s response to other world leaders at an international summit in Los Angeles last week.
On Monday, Univaja, a local Indigenous association that worked with Mr. Pereira and helped organize the search operations, said those searches would end soon. That news, along with police confirmation of a murder investigation, underscores that the case is no longer focused on finding Mr Phillips and Mr Pereira alive, but on finding out who may have killed them. .
“The chances of them being found alive are practically zero,” said Manuel Chorimpa Marubo, a local Indigenous leader who has assisted in searches with Univaja. “The hope now is to find the bodies.”
On Tuesday, Brazil’s federal police submitted a report to the nation’s Supreme Court summarizing their evidence. In a report seen by The Times, police said that only after a local resident saw Mr Phillips and Mr Pereira on the morning of June 5, the witness saw Oseney da Costa de Oliveira rowing a small boat on river. . The witness then helped tow Mr. de Oliveira to another boat, where his brother, Amarildo, was waiting.
Police said last week that witnesses saw Amarildo riding in a green speedboat with the Nike logo visible shortly after Mr Phillips and Mr Pereira that same day.
A day earlier, Univaja said, Amarildo had threatened a group including Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira by showing them a gun. Federal police said in a report on Tuesday that Amarildo had previously threatened Mr. Pereira and opened fire on the building of a government agency tasked with protecting indigenous groups, according to reports. Police said they were testing blood found on Amario’s boat.
Brazilian authorities said on Sunday that The item belongs to Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira, including clothes and a backpack, were 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 undergoing DNA testing. A federal police report by The Times said the organic matter was a human stomach.
Illegal activities in the area, including an indigenous reserve roughly the size of Maine, have flourished in recent years as government agencies have retreated, officials at Univaja said. know. Mr. Bolsonaro, a strong supporter of Amazon development, has environmental protection is removed and cut the budget of agencies responsible for forest security.
