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RIO DE JANEIRO — The Brazilian authorities stated on Tuesday that that they had arrested a second man within the disappearance of a British journalist and a Brazilian knowledgeable on Indigenous folks deep within the Amazon, confirming that their efforts had been shifting from a search-and-rescue operation to a murder investigation.
The Brazilian federal police stated that they had arrested Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, the brother of a fisherman who was detained final week. Witnesses noticed Mr. de Oliveira and his brother, Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, in a ship simply behind the lacking males shortly earlier than they had been final seen on a distant river greater than every week in the past, in keeping with investigative paperwork seen by The New York Occasions. The police stated that each suspects had been being held in a homicide investigation, however that they had not been charged.
The lacking males — Dom Phillips, 57, a contract author for the British information group The Guardian, and Bruno Araújo Pereira, 41, an knowledgeable who labored extensively within the area — had been final seen on June 5 whereas touring in a ship on the Itaquaí River within the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, close to the borders with Peru and Colombia. Mr. Phillips was reporting on patrol groups that Mr. Pereira had helped create to crack down on unlawful fishing and searching, an initiative that had led to threats towards Mr. Pereira.
Their disappearance has transfixed Brazil, drawn search crews from the army and Indigenous teams to scour a distant part of the rainforest and compelled President Jair Bolsonaro to defend his authorities’s response in entrance of different world leaders at a world summit in Los Angeles final week.
On Monday, Univaja, a neighborhood Indigenous affiliation that labored with Mr. Pereira and helped arrange the search operations, stated these searches would quickly finish. That information, together with the police’s affirmation of a homicide investigation, underscored that the case was not targeted on discovering Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira alive, however reasonably on determining who might have killed them.
“The probabilities that they’re discovered alive at the moment are virtually zero,” stated Manuel Chorimpa Marubo, a neighborhood Indigenous chief who has aided the searches with Univaja. “The hope now’s discovering the our bodies.”
On Tuesday, Brazil’s federal police despatched a report back to the nation’s Supreme Courtroom summarizing their proof. Within the report, which was seen by The Occasions, the police stated that simply after a neighborhood resident noticed Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira on the morning of June 5, the witness noticed Oseney da Costa de Oliveira rowing a small boat within the river. The witness then helped tow Mr. de Oliveira to a different boat, the place his brother, Amarildo, was ready.
The police stated final week that witnesses had seen Amarildo touring in his inexperienced speedboat with a visual Nike image simply behind Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira that very same day.
The day earlier than, Univaja stated, Amarildo had threatened a gaggle that included Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira by displaying them a gun. The federal police stated within the report on Tuesday that Amarildo had beforehand threatened Mr. Pereira and had fired a gun on the constructing of a authorities company tasked with defending Indigenous teams, in keeping with the report. The police have stated they’re testing blood discovered on Amarildo’s boat.
The Brazilian authorities stated on Sunday that objects belonging to Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira, together with clothes and a backpack, had been discovered within the space the place they disappeared. They stated that they had additionally discovered “apparently human natural matter” close to the place the lads had been final seen and had been testing it for DNA. The natural matter is a human abdomen, the federal police report seen by The Occasions stated.
Criminality within the area, which incorporates an Indigenous reserve roughly the scale of Maine, has flourished lately as authorities authorities have retreated, officers at Univaja stated. Mr. Bolsonaro, an unabashed supporter of creating the Amazon, has dismantled environmental protections and slashed the budgets of the companies accountable for policing the forest.
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