Phillips, 57, was shot dead on June 5 along with indigenist expert Bruno Pereira, 41, when they were returning from an expedition in the Javarí Valley, a remote part of the Amazon jungle considered dangerous by the presence of drug traffickers. Illegal fishing and gold mining.
Sampaio thanked the indigenous people who helped in the search, the press and “all the people who showed solidarity with Dom, Bruno” and their families.
“We will closely follow all the unfolding of the investigations, demanding justice,” the woman said, quoted by AFP.
Pereira’s funeral was held last Friday in his home state of Pernambuco (northeast Brazil), surrounded by emotional indigenous rituals.
The crime
Phillips had lived in Brazil for 15 years. In addition to being a regular contributor to The Guardian, he has worked for The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Financial Times.
Passionate about the Amazon, on which he wrote dozens of reports, Phillips was in the Javarí Valley region, guided by Pereira, to work on a book on environmental conservation and local development, with the support of the Alicia Patterson Foundation in the United States.
Pereira, who worked for many years at Brazil’s government agency for indigenous affairs (Funai), was at the service of local indigenous organizations, working on a project to help them denounce invasions of their land by illegal loggers, miners and hunters. .
For this work, Pereira had received death threats.
Three suspects were arrested for the crime, including a fisherman who confessed to burying the bodies and led investigators to the scene, more than ten days after Phillips and Pereira were last seen aboard a speedboat..
The mortal remains were identified and delivered to the families last Thursday.
That same day, the São Paulo Civil Police announced the arrest of a fourth suspect who presented himself to the authorities saying that he had participated in the crime.
But the Federal Police, which is leading the investigations, stated that he was released because his version of what happened was “little credible and unconnected” with what had been investigated so far.
Source: Ambito
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