Man confesses to killing journalist and colleague in Amazon

A fisherman confessed to killing a British journalist and an Indigenous expert in Brazil’s remote Amazon and took police to a site where human remains were recovered, a federal investigator said. It ended 10 days of suspense as teams searched for the missing pair.

Authorities said yesterday without giving details that they expected more arrests would be made soon in the case of freelance reporter Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira of Brazil, who disappeared on June 5.

At a news conference in the Amazon city of Manaus, a federal police investigator said the man who had been the prime suspect had confessed overnight and detailed what happened to Phillips and Pereira. Investigator Eduardo Alexandre Fontes said Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, 41, nicknamed Pelado, told officers he used a firearm to kill the men.

‘‘We would have no way of getting to that spot quickly without the confession,’’ officer Guilherme Torres said of the place where police recovered human remains yesterday after being led there by Pelado. The remains were expected to be identified within days, and if confirmed as the missing men, ‘‘will be returned to the families’’.

‘‘We found the bodies 3 kilometres into the woods,’’ the investigator said, adding officers traveled about one hour and 40 minutes by boat on a river and 25 more into the woods to reach the burial spot.

Pelado’s family had said previously that he denied any wrongdoing and was tortured by police to get a confession.

President Jair Bolsonaro, a frequent critic of journalists and Indigenous experts, has drawn criticsm that the government didn’t get involved fast enough. Earlier yesterday, he criticised Phillips in an interview, saying without evidence that locals in the area where he went missing didn’t like him and that he should have been more careful. –AP