BRASILIA, 21st December (RHC) – Brazil’s Federal Police (PF) on Tuesday arrested the suspected mastermind behind the killings of English journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous activist Bruno Aráujo in the Amazon last June after he was declared a fugitive from court .
According to information released by the PF, they arrested a fugitive from justice named “Colombia” who is accused of running a criminal society dedicated to illegal fishing.
“It should be noted that (the prisoner) is also a suspect in the murder of Bruno Pereira Araújo and Dom Phillips, whose investigations are ongoing,” the police source said.
The suspect received a suspended sentence last October after posting bail and restricting movement within the city of Manaus with an electronic ankle bracelet.
“His prison was again ordered by the Tabatinga Federal Court,” say the security forces in the shared border section between Brazil, Peru and Colombia, because he failed to meet the conditions for his release.
According to authorities, Alias Colombia will be placed in the penitentiary system and will request his transfer to a federal maximum-security prison to prevent another escape.
The police have also said several times that the identity of the test person is still not entirely clear, since he initially produced a Peruvian document during the investigation, but also had another Brazilian one with him.
For this reason, he was arrested and the police requested that the name Rubén Darío da Silva Villar, a Colombian citizen, be assigned to him, but even this data was not fully verified.
Colombia has been implicated in the deaths of Phillips and Aráujo by some witnesses and by the confessions of two of the seven defendants in the case. (Source/Telesur)