Top police officer is taken off Amazon murder inquiry

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

- Tom Phillips Rio de Janeiro

Francisco Badenes, an experienced investigator, had been running the inquiry into the 2022 murders of the Brazilian Indigenous expert and the British journalist since the second half of that year. The two men were ambushed and killed near the Amazon town of Atalaia do Norte while returning from a reporting trip to the entrance of one of Brazil's largest Indigenous territories.

Badenes was also responsible for investigating the 2019 murder of Maxciel Pereira dos Santos, an officer from the Indigenous protection agency Funai who had worked with Pereira and was killed in the nearby border city of Tabatinga.

Late last month, for reasons that remain unclear, the Brasília-based investigator was taken off both cases, as well as from a third case scrutinising a 2020 massacre allegedly perpetrated by military police officers in another part of the Amazon.

Eliesio Marubo, a lawyer for Univaja, the Indigenous association where Pereira had worked, said removing Badenes from those cases was "a big step backwards". He feared it would hinder police inquiries and efforts to combat the organised crime network suspected of the murders.