The couple was last seen on their boat on the Itaquai River – near the entrance to the Javari Indigenous Territory, which borders Peru and Colombia – on June 5, disappearing shortly afterwards. Their bodies were found 10 days later. The autopsy showed that they had been killed by a “weapon with standard hunting ammunition” and three men have already been arrested. Police did not name the new suspects accused of covering up the murder, adding in a brief statement that ongoing investigations were aimed at “clarifying all the circumstances, motives and those involved in the case”. Amarildo da Costa Oliveira, a fisherman who police say confessed to killing the two victims, Oseney da Costa’s brother and a third man, Jeferson da Silva Lima, has been arrested. Image: Federal Police officers escort a man accused of involvement The suspects allegedly dismembered the bodies, set them on fire and threw them into a ditch, local media reported. Phillips, a freelance reporter who wrote for The Guardian and the Washington Post, researched a travel book with Mr. Pereira, a former isolated tribal chief of the Funai Native Federal Office. The shock of the killings has resonated throughout Brazil and around the world, underscoring the reorganization of the Funai indigenous service under President Zaire Bolsonaro, along with a growing wave of violence and criminal incursions into indigenous areas. Mr Phillip’s wife said the family could “say goodbye with love” after his body was found. Picture: Bruno Pereira disappears next to Dom Phillips. Photo: BAND TV “Today, we are also starting our quest for justice. I hope the inquiries exhaust all possibilities and bring definitive answers to all the relevant details as soon as possible,” he said.
