The murderers of a British journalist and an indigenous expert in the Brazilian Amazon region acted alone, police say there are no backers. Indigenous representatives do not believe a word. The US State Department is also involved.
After the murders of the journalist Dom Phillips and the indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the Amazon region, there are serious doubts about the investigation results of the Brazilian authorities so far. Indigenous representatives reject the police's assessment that no criminal gangs were involved in the crime. The US government called for a thorough investigation into the background.
Phillips and Pereira went missing on June 5 while on a field trip in the Amazon. Ten days later, a suspect led police to a location where he said he had buried their bodies. Human remains unearthed at the site were taken to Brasília on Thursday for identification. On Friday, police confirmed one of the dead had been positively identified by forensic scientists as Dom Phillips.
So far, two suspects have been arrested. According to police, there are indications that other people may have been involved in the crime. Nevertheless, the police said on Friday: "The investigation results indicate that the murderers acted alone, without clients, without a criminal organization behind the murders".
The Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (Unijava), which had participated in the search for the two men, immediately contradicted this. Behind the crime were not just two murderers, but a "powerful criminal group that had planned the crime down to the smallest detail," according to a Unijava statement. The authorities have ignored numerous complaints about organized gangs in the region.
Phillips and Pereira were "murdered because they worked to protect the rainforest and the people who live there," said US State Department spokesman Ned Price. "We demand accountability and justice. Together we must step up efforts to protect environmentalists and journalists."
The British journalist Phillips and the Brazilian indigenous expert Pereira had researched a book about violence against indigenous people and sustainable protection of the rainforest in the Javari Valley. Gold miners, poachers and drug gangs are active in the region, which borders Peru and Colombia. Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who is held responsible for violence and environmental destruction in the Amazon, caused outrage with statements about the two men. He accused Phillips of making "careless" trips to areas where he wasn't welcome.
