Brazilian officials confirm that the remains found in the Amazon belong to British journalist Dom Phillips. At the same time, police believe that more than two suspects may have contributed to the murder.
Dental examinations carried out at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Brazil confirm that the remains found in connection with the search for British journalist Dom Phillips (57) and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira (41), belong to Phillips.
According to sources in the Federal Police CNN Brazil.
A new DNA test will be done for definitive confirmation.
On Friday, police said investigations into the remains of the other person, believed to be Pereira, were still ongoing.
The search for the two lasted 11 days before they were found on Wednesday. Then he showed one of the brothers suspected of the murders to the police The place where Phillips and Pereira are buried.
both brothers He must have confessed to the killings.
“They were killed to support the preservation of the rainforest and the indigenous people there,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
Price also offered his condolences to the families of the two men and said so
Phillips and Pereira disappeared on June 5 after a four-day press trip in the Javari region of the Amazon. They were there to visit indigenous communities in the far west of the Amazon, near the border with Peru.
They were buried in a densely forested area about two hours from the nearest village, he said Watchman.
Investigators continue to work on the remains for final identification and cause of death.
Police said earlier on Friday that the killings of the two men, which police believe were perpetrated by two arrested men, were not carried out on behalf of anyone else.
“The investigation indicates that the killers acted alone with no culprit or criminal organization behind them,” the Amazon Federal Police said in a statement.
However, the officials also said that there are indications that other people were involved in the criminal act and that more people are likely to be arrested.
But the police statement was met with skepticism From the original Univaja group that Pereira, the Ranger, worked with.
The group was too It is necessary to search for the two men.
In recent months, Univaja has sent several reports to the police stating that criminal gangs are active in the area, and the indigenous group alleges that some of these gangs are linked to the two suspects and arrested men.
“The cruelty of the criminal act shows that Pereira and Phillips got in the way of a powerful criminal organization that did everything in its power to conceal its tracks during the investigation,” Univaja said in a statement.
The statement continued that this context shows that there were not only two executions, but an organized group that planned every small detail of the crime.
Authorities say one of the main culprits in the investigation has identified an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish in the Valle do Javari, which is illegal because the area is reserved for the indigenous peoples of Brazil.
According to the Guardian, the killers cut down Pereira and Phillips’ boat on their way back to the village of Atalaia do Norte after a four-day reportage trip.
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