“Everything leads to the conclusion that, if they have been killed, their bodies are in the water. “If something like this happens, there will not be many things left, the fish will eat them,” said Brazilian President Zaich Bolsonaro earlier.
The two Brazilian suspects in the disappearance of the British journalist Dom Phillips and the expert on the natives of the Amazon, Bruno Pereira, confessed today that they killed and dismembered the two menbroadcast by CNN Brasil and Band News.
Earlier, federal police said they were continuing to search for Phillips and Pereira as part of a “homicide investigation” and after the arrest of two suspects. Witnesses who spoke to Reuters said they saw police leading a man with a hooded head into the river where the victims were missing.
Police have not commented on the “confession” of the perpetrators.
The suspects are a fisherman, Amarildo da Costa or “Pelando” and his brother Oseney da Costa or “Dos Santos”, 41 years old.
Amarildo was arrested last week on charges related to illegal possession of weapons and was remanded in custody pending police investigation into his involvement in the disappearance of the two men. Oseney was arrested Tuesday night. Their family insists they played no role in the case.
“The journalist was disliked”
Earlier, the President of Brazil Zaich Bolsonaro said Dom Phillips was “disliked” in the area for reporting on illegal mining and the environment. “In this very isolated area, a lot of people did not like him. “He should have doubled his precautions.
“Everything leads to the conclusion that, if they have been killed, their bodies are in the water. “If something like this happens, there will not be many things left, the fish will eat them, I do not know if there are piranhas in the area”, he added.
Dom Phillips, 57, and his friend and driver Bruno Pereira, 41, were last seen on June 5 as they returned by boat to Atalaya, Dorte, near the border with Peru and Colombia. The area where their traces disappeared, the valley of the river Giavari, is considered dangerous, as there are smugglers of drugs and others who engage in illegal activities in the rainforest (logging, mining, etc.).
Phillips worked with the British newspaper The Guardian for years and went to the Amazon as part of his research on an environmental book. Bruno Pereira, known for his fights for the rights of the natives of the Amazon, had taken on the role of his guide in the region.
