Brazil arrests 2nd suspect in case of missing men
STORY: Police in Brazil arrested a second suspect on Tuesday tied to the case of the disappearance of a British journalist and Indigenous expert in the Amazon.
What began as a search for the missing men appears to be changing to a homicide investigation.
In a statement, Brazil’s federal police said that 41-year-old Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, also known as 'Dos Santos,' was under temporary arrest on suspicion he was involved in the case with his brother Amarildo, who was arrested last week.
Amarildo, known as 'Pelado,' was arrested in the riverside village of Sao Gabriel where the journalist, Don Philips, and expert, Bruno Pereira, were last seen on June 5.
A police investigator told reporters that Amarildo quote, 'did not resist arrest on suspicion of homicide based on witness accounts that placed the two suspects at the supposed scene of the crime.'
The search for Phillips and Pereira is nearing the end as the area left to search has kept shrinking, according to a spokesman for indigenous group Univaja, which has been searching non-stop for the men.
A lawyer for the group said indigenous searchers tipped off the authorities after discovering traces of the men in the area, helping to focus the search.
Pereira, a former head of isolated and recently contacted tribes at Brazil's indigenous affairs agency, was traveling on a research trip with Phillips, a freelance reporter who has written for the Guardian and the Washington Post and was working on a book on the Amazon.
