MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian court about to release suspect in reporters Bruno and Dom case

“Crime scene and crime dinner are different things,” the case rapporteur argued in the murder of Phillips and Pereira

Brasilia's Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region (TRF1) Tuesday agreed to review an appeal filed by the legal team of one of the three defendants in the much-publicized 2022 murder of native-peoples activist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips in the Indigenous Land of Vale do Javari in the Amazon, Agencia Brasil reported.

Tuesday's decision overturned a previous judgment by the lower Tabatinga Federal Court ordering Oseney da Costa de Oliveira to stand trial. The new understanding should allow da Costa de Oliveira to be released in the next few days when such a measure is granted by case rapporteur Marcos Augusto de Sousa, it was explained.

The judges analyzed the appeals of Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, Jefferson da Silva Lima, and Oseney da Costa de Oliveira against the Oct. 2023 ruling ordering their arraignment. They have been remanded under charges of homicide and concealment of corpse.

De Sousa found that there was no evidence of Oseney's involvement in the murders, and prosecutors “did not place Oseney at the crime scene”. He was with his son Amarildo in a canoe. But “Crime scene and crime dinner are different things,” he argued while upholding the lower court's decision to bring the other two suspects to trial.

However, their legal teams claimed they had been denied access to the evidence and that Amarildo's confession was extracted through torture.

Bruno and Dom were killed on June 5, 2022, while traveling by boat through the Vale do Javari, in the Amazon, a region that shelters the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land, the second largest in the country, with more than 8.5 million hectares.

They were last seen while leaving the community of São Rafael for the city of Atalaia do Norte (AM), where they were to meet with local community leaders. Their bodies were recovered ten days later, buried in an area of closed bush, about 3 kilometers from the Itacoaí River creek.

A contributor to the British newspaper The Guardian, Phillips was dedicated to environmental journalistic coverage and was working on a book on the Amazon.

Pereira had already occupied the General Coordination of Isolated and Recém Contatados Indians of the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (Funai) before leaving the organization to work for the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (Univaja). For his work in defense of indigenous communities and environmental preservation, he received several death threats.