Brothers ‘confess to British reporter’s murder’

Suspects have admitted the ambush and killing of journalist and his guide in Amazon, say police sources

TWO brothers have confessed to shooting dead a British journalist and his Brazilian guide in a remote region of the Amazon, police sources told local media yesterday.

Veteran reporter Dom Phillips and indigenous peoples expert Bruno Pereira were travelling on the Itaquaí River, deep in the western Brazilian Amazon, when they vanished on June 5.

Two suspects, brothers Oseney and Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, have since been detained.

Federal police, accompanied by a sniffer dog, were last night seen escorting one of the suspects to the stretch of river where Mr Phillips and Mr Pereira were last sighted.

The suspect was escorted by officers with his face covered, a red-and-black hooded sweatshirt pulled low over his head, in images shown on TV Globo, Brazil’s biggest broadcaster.

He was identified by local media as 41-year-old Oseney. He was placed on a police boat which then set off for the spot on the river where investigators are searching for signs of Mr Phillips, 57, and Mr Pereira, 41.

It came amid reports that a key witness had told detectives they heard gunshots in the same area.

Local broadcaster Band News, citing federal police sources, said the suspects ambushed the two men on the river and killed them, before dismembering the bodies, setting them on fire and throwing them in a ditch.

The reports could not be independently confirmed last night. Federal police in Atalaia do Norte have not yet commented on the reported confession.

A representative of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (Univaja), the group that has led searches since the pair’s disappearance, said it was “too early to confirm” reports of a confession.

Mr Phillips, a former contributor to the Washington Post and The Guardian, and Mr Pereira, a former Brazilian indigenous rights official, were on a research trip for a book titled How to Save the Amazon when they vanished.

Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president, who last year faced tough questioning from Mr Phillips over his environmental record, struck an unsympathetic tone last night by saying the expedition was “reckless”.

“This English guy was not well liked in the region, because he wrote a lot of articles about [illegal mining] and environmental issues,” Mr Bolsonaro said.

“There are pirates in the river there, there’s everything you could possibly imagine. It’s very reckless to be in that region without being properly physically prepared... which it seems they were not.”

Boris Johnson said yesterday he was “deeply concerned” and the UK Government was working with Brazilian authorities investigating the case.

Earlier, the Brazilian ambassador to London apologised to the Phillips family for incorrectly telling them that two bodies had been found in the rainforest.

Mr Phillips’s brother-in-law, Paul Sherwood, said Fred Arruda had since written to the family to apologise.mr Arruda said he was “deeply sorry” and the embassy had been “misled” by “investigating officials”.

He insisted: “The search operation will go on, with no efforts being spared.”

Oseney da Costa de Oliveira was arrested on Tuesday evening in the riverside village of Sao Gabriel, where police seized firearm cartridges and an oar. His brother Amarildo has been in custody since last week.

Civil police chief Alex Perez said Amarildo was being held on suspicion of “alleged aggravated murder” while his brother Oseney was being detained “on suspicion of involvement in the case”.