Brazilian police have arrested five more suspects for involvement in the deaths of British journalist Dom Phillips and his fellow Brazilian traveler, government official 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. One of them, 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.
According to the Brazilian federal police, Phillips was killed after the pair took a photo of the boat on which the suspects were sailing. “In this way, he was unable to identify them later,” said a spokesman for the Brazilian Federal Police.
The group was illegally fishing in the area. Pereira is said to have had several quarrels with the main suspect Costa de Oliveira for this reason, because he organized local patrols in the reserve.
