Greek ambassador murdered by wife’s lover, police say

Officers in Brazil say policeman confessed to plot

RIO DE JANEIRO // Greece’s ambassador to Brazil was murdered after a plot hatched by his Brazilian wife and her policeman lover, who confessed to the crime, police said.

Kyriakos Amiridis, 59, was killed on Monday by the officer, Sergio Moreira, said Evaristo Pontes, a homicide investigator in the Rio police.

Amiridis’s charred body was found in Rio in his burnt-out rental car on Thursday, a day after his wife, Francoise de Souza Oliveira, declared him missing.

Ms Oliveira, 40, and Moreira, 29, both admitted to having an affair, police said.

The pair are in custody, along with Moreira’s 24- year- old cousin, Eduardo Moreira de Melo, who allegedly also took part.

According to the homicide division chief, Ms Oliveira denied participating in the murder itself, but confessed she knew of the crime.

Amiridis, who was named ambassador this year, had been on a holiday with his wife in the north of Rio de Janeiro since December 21. They had been due to fly back to the capital Brasilia on January 9.

Originally, his wife told police that he had left the Rio apartment they were staying in, taken the car and not returned.

But her version of events contained contradictions, and after Amiridis’s body was found in the burnt car under a bridge, police took her in for more questioning, and also detained Mr Moreira.

Traces of blood were reportedly found on a sofa in the apartment Amiridis and his wife had been staying in, leading investigators to believe he had been killed there, before his body was placed in the rental car and driven to the spot it was found.

Mr Pontes said that Ms Oliveira had offered Moirera’s cousin the equivalent of $ 25,000 ( Dh91,800) to help with the murder.

Moreira said that he and the ambassador had a fight and that he strangled the diplomat in self-defence. Amiridis had served as Greece’s consul general in Rio from 2001 to 2004, where he met Ms Oliveira.

The couple have a 10-year-old daughter.

A Greek police team was headed for Brazil to take part in the investigation, while Greece’s ambassador in Argentina was travelling to Brasilia, Athens said.

In a letter to the Greek government, Brazilian president Michel Temer sent his condolences and conveyed his government’s commitment to conducting a “rigorous” investigation.

“The Brazilian people do not accept this type of behaviour and we apologise to the entire Greek population,” said the director of Rio’s homicide division, Rivaldo Barbosa.

He said the murder was “isolated” and a crime of passion that had nothing to do with Rio’s elevated levels of violence.

Rio de Janeiro has a reputation as a dangerous place. Last year’s Olympic host city has seen crime rates soar in recent months, fuelled by drug gang violence.

Hit hard by Brazil’s worst recession in more than a century, Rio de Janeiro state is facing bankruptcy and struggling to deal with the violent crime that has long dogged the area.