Brazilian police have arrested five more suspects for involvement in the deaths of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian government employee Bruno Pereira. The police suspect that the five helped to hide the bodies.
By our news editorsPhillips wrote for the British newspaper The Guardian and Pereira worked for the Brazilian government agency for indigenous affairs. The two went on an expedition together in June in Brazil’s Javari Valley, along the border with Peru. They were supposed to conduct interviews for a conservation book, but went missing.
A total of eight people are now incarcerated on suspicion of involvement in the murder of the two. Amarildo Costa de Oliveira is the main suspect in the case. Three of the new suspects are said to be relatives of his, police said in a statement.
Pereira is said to have had several quarrels with Costa de Oliveira, because the latter allegedly fished illegally in the area. The government employee organized patrols to prevent that. After Phillips and Pereira snapped a photo of the boat the suspects were sailing on, they may have been killed. “That way, the pair could not later identify the group,” said a spokesman for the Brazilian federal police.
