Greek diplomat ‘killed in Brazilian wife’s home’
Experts fear body found in car is his as wife named suspect
RIO DE JANEIRO // Investigators yesterday said they believed the Greek ambassador, who has been missing since Monday, was killed at the home his wife kept in the Rio de Janeiro area.
The discovery of a burnt- out car on Thursday with a body in it sparked fears that it might be that of Kyriakos Amiridis, Greece’s ambassador to Brazil. Forensic experts have not yet identified the body, but Rio de Janeiro police investigator Giniton Lages said that blood spots believed to be from the ambassador were discovered on a sofa inside the home of his Brazilian wife, Francoise Amiridis. Mr Lages named the wife, along with another woman and two men, as suspects in the case.
Amiridis went missing on Monday in the city of Nova Iguacu, 25 miles north of Rio de Janeiro.
He and his wife lived most of the time in Brasilia, the capital, but the Greek embassy said the ambassador had been on holiday with his family in the Nova Iguacu area since December 21.
Ms Amiridis was being interrogated at a police station yesterday in connection with her husband’s disappearance.
The ambassador was last seen on Monday evening leaving the home of friends of his wife in a poor and violent suburb of Rio’s metropolitan area, police said. His wife reported him missing on Wednesday.
The authorities believed she had been having an extramarital affair with a police officer.
Mr Lages said it is believed the ambassador’s body was taken from his wife’s Rio house to a car that he had rented on December 21.
An embassy source confirmed that the burnt-out car found in Nova Iguacu was the one rented by Amiridis on that date. The Greek foreign ministry have requested the full mobilisation of Brazilian authorities. Amiridis was ambassador to Libya from 2012 until earlier this year, when he was posted to Brazil.
He was Greece’s consul general in Rio from 2001 to 2004.