The two brothers arrested for the disappearance of the English journalist Dom Phillips and the Brazilian indigenista Bruno Pereira in the Amazon jungle they confessed to the murder of both, supposedly in revenge for fighting against illegal fishing in indigenous territories, reported police sources quoted by the television channels GloboNews, Bandeirantes and Record. The detainees were taken to the place where the remains of Phillips and Pereira would be found, in Atalaia do Norte, extreme west of Brazil, near the triple border with Colombia and Peru.
On Tuesday night, Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, known as “Dos Santos”, had been arrested, accused of participating in the case and brother of the first arrested, Amarildo da Costa Oliveira, a fisherman nicknamed “Pelado” and who allegedly threatened the indigenista and the correspondent of The Guardian a day before the disappearance.
According to sources cited by local media, the brothers said they decided to commit the murder after Pereira surprised them in fishing practices considered illegal. The defendants reportedly took the two men to a place isolated from a river where they murdered, dismembered and burned them, to later bury their remains on dry land.
This Wednesday the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaroheld that Phillips “was badly seen in that region, because he did many reports against the ‘garimpeiros’ (illegal miners) and the environmental issue“and reiterated that they both knew of the danger they were running in that area.