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RIO DE JANEIRO — The Brazilian authorities mentioned on Tuesday that they’d arrested a second man within the disappearance of a British journalist and a Brazilian professional 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 mentioned they’d 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 response to investigative paperwork seen by The New York Occasions. The police mentioned that each suspects had been being held in a homicide investigation, however they’d 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 professional 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 looking, an initiative that had led to threats in opposition to Mr. Pereira.
Their disappearance has transfixed Brazil, drawn search crews from the navy 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, an area Indigenous affiliation that labored with Mr. Pereira and helped set up the search operations, mentioned these searches would quickly finish. That information, together with the police’s affirmation of a homicide investigation, underscored that the case was now not targeted on discovering Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira alive, however fairly on determining who might have killed them.
“The probabilities that they’re discovered alive at the moment are virtually zero,” mentioned Manuel Chorimpa Marubo, an area 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 mentioned that simply after an area 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 mentioned 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 mentioned, Amarildo had threatened a gaggle that included Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira by displaying them a gun. The federal police mentioned 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 response to the report. The police have mentioned they’re testing blood discovered on Amarildo’s boat.
The Brazilian authorities mentioned on Sunday that gadgets belonging to Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira, together with clothes and a backpack, had been discovered within the space the place they disappeared. They mentioned they’d 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 mentioned.
Criminal activity within the area, which incorporates an Indigenous reserve roughly the dimensions of Maine, has flourished in recent times as authorities authorities have retreated, officers at Univaja mentioned. Mr. Bolsonaro, an unabashed supporter of creating the Amazon, has dismantled environmental protections and slashed the budgets of the businesses answerable for policing the forest.
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