The expertise practiced on human remains found in the Amazon confirmed that they were indeed those of the British journalist Dom Phillips, who disappeared on June 5 in the company of the Brazilian expert Bruno Pereira, announced Friday the Brazilian police.
“This confirmation was possible thanks to an odontological examination” of the samples which were analyzed in a laboratory in Brasilia, the Federal Police said in a press release. “Comprehensive identification work continues, to better understand the cause of death, the dynamics of the crime and the concealment of the corpses,” she added.
Earlier in the day, the police indicated that the elements available to them at this stage of the investigation led to believe “that the killers acted alone, without a sponsor, without a criminal organization behind the murders”.
Two suspects arrested
The remains of Dom Phillips were found on Wednesday at the place indicated by one of the two arrested suspects, the fisherman Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, known as “Pelado”, who had confessed the day before to having buried the bodies.
The Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (Univaja), whose members actively participated in the search, refuted the police version on Friday. “There are not just two killers, but an organized group that planned the crime down to the smallest detail,” Univaja said in a statement.
