Dom Phillips was ‘collateral damage’ in drunken ambush, claims Brazil vice-president

Hamilton Mourão’s claim sparked anger from Indigenous communities who believe organised crime was involved

Brazil’s vice-president has claimed that British journalist Dom Phillips was “collateral damage” in an attack on his travelling partner, the Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira, as grisly details emerged about the killing of the two men in early June.

One of the three men in custody for the killings said he and his accomplices tried to burn the bodies after shooting them dead at the edge of a river in western Brazil.

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Brazil police identify five more people linked to killings of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

Officers have already arrested three people, one of whom confessed to killing British journalist and indigenous advocate

Police investigating the murder of the British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira have identified five more people connected with the killings, bringing to eight the number of suspects in a crime that has shocked Brazil.

Police had already arrested two brothers, one of whom confessed to the crime, and a third man handed himself in to authorities on Saturday.

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Brazil police arrest third suspect in killings of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

Jefferson da Silva Lima turned himself in to Amazon police as autopsy finds journalist and indigenous expert were shot

Brazil’s federal police said Saturday that a third suspect in the deaths of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira has been arrested. The pair, whose remains were found after they went missing almost two weeks ago, were shot to death, according to an autopsy.

Phillips was shot in the chest and Pereira was shot in the head and the abdomen, police said in a statement. It said the autopsy indicated the use of a “firearm with typical hunting ammunition.”

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Four jailed in Colombia for honeymoon murder of prosecutor

Gang members given 23-year terms for shooting dead Paraguayan anti-corruption prosecutor Marcelo Pecci

Four people who confessed to taking part in the murder of a Paraguayan prosecutor who was on his honeymoon have each been sentenced to 23 years in jail.

Marcelo Pecci, 45, known for fighting organised crime, was shot dead on the Colombian island of Barú near the Caribbean city of Cartagena on 10 May.

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Police say remains found in Brazilian Amazon belong to Dom Phillips

Officials give confirmation after forensic tests, as police suggest killings were not carried out upon orders from organised crime

Forensic tests carried out on human remains found in the Brazilian Amazon have confirmed that they belonged to Dom Phillips, the British journalist who went missing with the Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira.

Brazil’s federal police said late on Friday that it could “confirm that the remains of Dom Phillips are part of the [human] material” found on Wednesday after an 11-day search along the banks of the Itaquaí river. They had been buried in a densely forested area two hours from the nearest town.

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In his own words: Dom Phillips’ reporting on Brazil and the Amazon

Dom Phillips, whose death in the Amazon has shocked many, was a frequent contributor to the Guardian. Here are some of his outstanding pieces of journalism

Over some of the most tumultuous years in Brazil, Dom Phillips bore witness to the politics of his adopted home and to the fate of the Amazon rainforest. Travelling into the forest is a slow and laborious process, yet Phillips returned again and again.

Phillips wrote regularly for the Guardian and other publications. Here, we have collected some of his most outstanding pieces of journalism.

For more than a decade after the reserve was set up in 1998, its 16 uncontacted Indigenous tribes were among the best protected in Brazil. Yet today it is invaded on multiple fronts, leaving its isolated groups – who hunt with bows and arrows or blow-pipes, and avoid contact with modern society – at risk. Contact with outsiders can be deadly for these groups, who lack immunity to diseases like flu.

“The vulnerability of these peoples is growing,” Beto Marubo, a Javari Indigenous leader, told the United Nations permanent forum on indigenous issues in New York in April. “There is no effective protection.”

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Police losing narco war in deadly Amazon region where duo disappeared

A key police outpost lies in ruins after a daring raid – a sign of the growing danger on an increasingly lucrative smuggling route

In the crime-infested tri-border region where Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira disappeared, rumours abound over what happened at Puerto Amelia in January this year.

Were Brazilian drug traffickers responsible for burning the Peruvian police outpost on the River Yavarí to the ground?

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‘Heartbroken’: family pay tribute to Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

Colleagues call for journalist and Indigenous activist’s work to be inspiration to others

The family of Dom Phillips have spoken of their heartbreak over the murder of the British journalist and the Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira as colleagues called for the men’s work to be an inspiration to others.

In a statement issued on behalf of Phillips’ sister Sian, his brother Gareth, and their partners and children, the family offered thanks to those who had taken part in the 10-day search.

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Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira: Brazil police find two bodies in search for missing men

Police chief says one of the men arrested in connection with the pair’s disappearance had confessed to killing them

Police in the Brazilian Amazon have found the bodies of two men in the area close to where British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira went missing 10 days ago.

At a press briefing late on Wednesday, regional police chief Eduardo Fontes said one of the two men arrested in connection with the pair’s disappearance had confessed to killing them.

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‘Deep concern’ over fate of Dom Phillips in Brazil, says Boris Johnson

Prime minister says UK government will provide any support needed after journalist’s disappearance in Amazon

Boris Johnson has said the UK government is “deeply concerned” about the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the British journalist Dom Phillips, after Theresa May called on the prime minister to make the case “a diplomatic priority”.

May raised Phillips’s case during prime minister’s questions, citing correspondence with Phillips’ niece Dominique Davis, one of her constituents. Johnson said the UK had offered to provide support to Brazilian search teams looking for Phillips and his travelling partner, Bruno Pereira, an Indigenous expert.

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Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira: police in Brazil arrest second man for ‘alleged murder’

Suspect is brother of first person held by police over disappearance of the British journalist and indigenous activist

Police in Brazil say they have arrested a second man in connection with “the alleged murder” of the British journalist Dom Phillips and the Brazilian Indigenous defender Bruno Pereira.

Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, 41, was arrested on Tuesday and is being held in Atalaia do Norte, the isolated river town Phillips and Pereira were trying to reach when they vanished on Sunday 5 June.

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Brazil Indigenous agency staff strike over Bruno Pereira disappearance

Employees walk off the job amid anger over statements criticising the former Funai employee who went missing with Dom Phillips

Employees with Brazil’s national Indigenous foundation (Funai) have launched a one-day strike, amid anger over what they say is the dismantling of a key government agency and official statements criticising Bruno Pereira, the former Funai employee who went missing along with the British journalist Dom Phillips last week.

Funai staff and related civil service employees walked off the job at 9am on Tuesday in Brasília, Florianópolis and Dourados, and others are voting on whether to launch a wider strike next week, officials with the unions said.

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Brazil envoy apologises to Dom Phillips’ family for saying bodies had been found

Ambassador ‘deeply sorry’ for ‘information that did not prove correct’ as search continues for missing journalist and colleague

The Brazilian ambassador to the UK has apologised to the family of Dom Phillips for incorrectly telling them his body had been found in the Amazon along with that of his missing travelling partner Bruno Pereira.

On Monday morning an embassy official called Phillips’s brother-in-law and sister to inform them that the bodies of the British journalist and Brazilian Indigenous expert had been found tied to a tree, one week after the pair vanished on the River Itaquaí.

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Bolsonaro says ‘something wicked’ done to Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

Brazil president comments on journalist and Indigenous expert’s fate amid unconfirmed claims bodies have been found in Amazon

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has said he believes “something wicked” was done to the missing British journalist Dom Phillips and the Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, amid unconfirmed claims their bodies had been found in the Amazon.

British relatives of Phillips said they had been contacted by the Brazilian embassy in London on Monday morning and informed that two unidentified bodies had been found during the search operation.

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Items belonging to Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira found in Amazon

Clothing and backpack belonging to the missing British journalist and Indigenous expert found by small but determined search team

Personal items belonging to the British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira have been found in an area of flooded forest near the Amazonian river on which they were last seen.

The objects were discovered on Saturday thanks to a small but determined Indigenous search team that has spent the past seven days on the frontline of the hunt for the two missing men who had both, in different ways, championed the Indigenous cause.

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Hope of finding Dom Phillips alive has gone, say mother-in-law and wife

The British journalist was travelling in the Amazon with Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira when they went missing

The wife and mother-in-law of missing British journalist Dom Phillips have said their hopes of finding him alive had gone, in a heartfelt and heart-breaking message that paid tribute to him and his travelling companion Bruno Pereira.

Phillips, a longtime contributor to the Guardian, and Pereira, an experienced Indigenous advocate, went missing on 5 June in a remote part of the western Amazon.

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Indigenous leaders express frustration at military in search for two men in Brazil

Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips went missing in the western Amazon, but the search has been called inefficient

Indigenous leaders in the area where a British journalist and Brazilian explorer went missing last Sunday have expressed increasing frustration at the lack of coordination in the search for the two men.

Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, a longtime contributor to the Guardian, were last seen on Sunday morning while traveling by boat on the Itaquaí River in the western Amazon.

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Hopes fade of finding missing men as Brazilian police report finding ‘apparently human’ material

Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, missing for more than five days, had failed to show up in Atalaia do Norte at the end of a reporting trip

Hopes of finding a British journalist and a Brazilian guide faded on Friday as police announced an unsettling development in the search for the two men last seen five days ago on a remote river in Amazonia.

“Search teams found on the river, near to Atalaia do Norte, apparently human organic material,” Brazil’s federal police said in a statement.

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Indigenous groups scour forests and rivers for Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

Indigenous activists have been searching for the missing pair since just hours after they vanished, with support from armed members of the military police

Warm rain lashed the speedboat as it barrelled south towards the spot where Binin Matis’s mentor vanished without a trace.

“He was like a father to me,” said the 31-year-old Indigenous leader as his vessel advanced to the U-shaped bend where Bruno Pereira was last seen. “Now he’s gone, I’m not sure what I’ll do.”

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Dom Phillips: sister of missing journalist still hopeful he will be found

Sian Phillips joins London vigil for Briton and the Brazilian Bruno Araújo Pereira who have vanished in Amazon

The sister of a British journalist missing in the Amazon has said she still has hope he will be found.

Sian Phillips was joined by supporters at a vigil for her brother Dom Phillips, who has worked as a freelance correspondent for the Guardian, and the Brazilian Indigenous affairs official Bruno Araujo Pereira outside the Brazilian embassy in central London on Thursday.

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