Brazil’s federal police continue to search for the missing boat belonging to British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira as investigators prepare to test human remains buried in the Amazon.
It’s because DNA tests of blood found in the boat of the man accused of murder have shown that it is not that of the British journalist.
Investigators say tests to determine if it was Pereira were inconclusive.
Police also told the PA news agency on Friday that despite “exhaustive searches,” officers had not found the missing man’s boat.
Fisherman Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, 41, confessed to shooting the men and leading officers to human remains he had buried in an area near the Amazon where the couple disappeared.
In their latest announcement on the case, the police reiterated that the remains had yet to be identified. They said testing would begin on Friday, and results were expected next week.
A federal police plane flew the remains into Brasilia on Thursday evening.
The human remains were discovered after a 10-day search for the missing British journalist and his Brazilian companion, who disappeared on June 5.
Brazilian authorities have so far arrested two men in connection with the alleged murders of the couple. On Thursday, police said Da Costa de Oliveira – the prime suspect – confessed to using a firearm to kill Phillips and Pereira.
More arrests are expected.
Police did not immediately provide a motive for the killing, but officials previously suggested Pereira’s work to stop illegal fishing in an indigenous reserve had angered local fishermen.
Phillips’ family reacted passionately to the news of da Costa de Oliveira’s confession to his murder.
“We extend our deepest condolences to Alessandra, Beatriz, and the other Brazilian relatives of both men,” said Phillips’s brother-in-law Paul Sherwood.
Friends and colleagues of the longtime campaigner for the Amazon and its indigenous people also paid tribute to the journalist.
Jonathan Watts, The Guardian’s global environmental editor, said his longtime friend had died in “an undeclared global war against nature and the people who defend it”.
In an op-ed, Watts also targeted Brazilian authorities and President Jair Bolsonaro.
“Police refused to put a helicopter in the air after the two men were reported missing, and the military said it could search but wasted more than a day waiting for orders,” he wrote.
Watts said the president, who previously accused Phillips and Pereira of taking an “ill-advised “adventure”, “encouraged illegal logging and mining, rejected indigenous land rights, attacked conservation groups and slashed the forest’s budgets and personnel.”.” and Indigenous Protection Agencies”.
He said what happened to the men “is part of a global trend”.
“In the past two decades, thousands of environmental and land defenders have been murdered worldwide. Brazil was the most murderous country at the time,” Watts said.