Shock as police chief is removed from Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips murder case | Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

Indigenous activists and lawyers in Brazil have expressed shock and dismay after the federal police chief leading the investigation into the murders of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips was unexpectedly removed from the case.

Francisco Badenes, a veteran investigator, led the investigation into the deaths of the Brazilian indigenous expert and the British journalist in 2022 since the second half of that year.

Pereira and Phillips were ambushed and killed near the Amazon town of Atalaia do Norte while returning from a reporting trip to the entrance to one of Brazil’s largest indigenous territories.

Badenes was also responsible for investigating the 2019 killing of Maxciel Pereira dos Santos, an officer with the indigenous protection organization Funai who had worked with Pereira and was killed in the nearby border town of Tabatinga.

Late last month, the Brasilia-based investigator was removed from both cases for reasons that remain unclear. A third investigator, who was investigating a 2020 massacre allegedly committed by military police in another part of the Amazon, was also removed from the case.

Eliesio Marubo, a lawyer for Univaja, the indigenous association where Pereira worked, said removing Badenes from those cases was “a big step backwards.” He feared it would hamper police investigations and efforts to combat the organized crime network suspected of committing those and other crimes.

“This is damaging (to the investigation)… There has to be a public interest justification to change him – and I don’t see any public interest justification here,” said Marubo, who was a friend of Pereira.

Thais Rego Monteiro, a lawyer representing Santos’ family, said they were “dismayed, saddened and disheartened” by reports that Badenes – who has investigated much of the killings and death squads over the past 30 years – had been fired.

Monteiro, who did not know the reasons for the change, called Badenes a diligent, capable and efficient investigator who had made important breakthroughs in the Santos case after years of inactivity. “(Family members) feel dejected and really disturbed by this change,” Monteiro said, calling it “an impediment to the progress and completion of this investigation.”

The federal police declined to comment officially on the changes. However, a federal police source confirmed that a new investigator would take charge of the three investigations and said he hoped the change would speed up the investigations into the killings of Phillips, Pereira and Santos.

In a statement, Univaja expressed “deep concern” about the situation and said there was “intense suspicion” about the inexplicable move. The group, based in Atalaia do Norte, has asked the Ministry of Justice for urgent clarification.

Pereira and Phillips were killed while hiking along the Itaquaí River on June 5, 2022, when they were visiting indigenous peoples’ patrol teams trying to protect the indigenous territory of the Javari Valley, a vast rainforest believed to be home to the largest concentration of uncontacted peoples in the world.

The alleged killers – a trio of fishermen named Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, Oseney da Costa de Oliveira and Jeferson da Silva Lima (also known as Pelado da Dinha) – are being held in maximum-security prisons and are expected to appear in court next year. They are suspected of committing the crime on behalf of Ruben Dario da Silva Villar, who has been accused by police of running a transnational illegal fishing network that preys on those protected indigenous territories. Villar has also been arrested and charged.

Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira and Jeferson da Silva Lima confessed to the killings in the days after Pereira and Phillips disappeared, but later claimed they had acted in “self-defense” after being shot by the indigenous expert. Their co-defendants have denied involvement in the crime.

However, indigenous activists suspect an even larger conspiracy behind the killings of Phillips, Pereira and Santos. They say criminal gangs are still active in the remote region where they were killed.

Marubo, who hoped Badenes would be reinstated, feared that replacing the investigator would hamper efforts to catch the criminals responsible for the killings and for illegal poaching, drug trafficking and mining in the Javari.

“This will really give the investigation a different twist than the twist that we believe will lead to the real culprits – not only for the murders of Bruno and Dom, but also for Maxciel,” he said.