The body of Lancaster journalist Dom Phillips has been returned to his family in Brazil. He and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were killed earlier this month while returning from an expedition in the Amazon.
The country's vice-president said that Dom, 58, was killed as "collateral damage" during a "drunken" attack on his travel partner Bruno, 41. They had embarked on the trip - Dom from his home of Salvador, where he lived with his wife, and Bruno from Sao Paulo - to undertake research for a book.
The pair had gone missing on June 5 while after travelling by boat through the Javari Valley, on a remote stretch of the Itaquai River in northeastern Brazil. An extensive police search led to the discovery of their bodies ten days later.
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Police have said that they died using hunting ammunition and their brutal murders have shocked the world. According to local media, their bodies have now been handed over to their families in Brazil.
The men's families are now planning their funerals, to be held on Friday and Sunday, the BBC reports. Dom's family will hold a cremation near Rio de Janeiro on Sunday - exactly four weeks since the pair were last seen alive.
On Thursday (June 23) a fourth suspect, Gabriel Dantas, handed himself into police in Sao Paulo in connection with the killings and has given details on how the men were killed and buried, reports LancsLive. He told officers he drove the boat that chased the two men, according to excerpts of his statement published by local media.
But he claims he was not told any details about the trip or its purpose. As the investigation continues, Brazil’s vice-president Hamilton Mourao said he believes Dom died because he was with Bruno, who was the target of the killers. “If someone ordered the crime, it’s a businessperson in the region who was feeling aggrieved, mainly by Bruno’s actions,” Mourao said.
“Not Dom’s. Dom got caught up in this story. He was collateral damage. This is a crime, it was something that happened in a moment, almost like an ambush. Something that had been brewing for a time, so to speak. In my assessment, it must have happened on Sunday. On Sunday, Saturday, folks drink, they get drunk – the same happens here in the poorer areas, in the outskirts of the big cities.”
Mourao, the vice-president to leader Jair Bolsonaro who initially was critical of Mr Phillips' decision to go into the area of the Amazon where he died, did not say whether his comments were based on evidence, The Mirror reports. But he added that in Brazil's big cities "every weekend people are struck and killed by knives, by gunshots, in the most cowardly of manners, and normally this is a result of what? Alcohol. So that’s what must have happened there.”
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