Suspect charged with journalists' death in Brazil gets house arrest
3 Min Read
Villar has been prohibited from leaving Brazil and has surrendered his passport after his arrest.
-
The suspect in the middle, who confessed to murdering the two journalists (Amazon Agency)
Brazilian media reported on Monday that a judge has granted bail to one of the suspects charged in the murder of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and allowed his release on house arrest.
According to local press reports, Ruben da Silva Villar, a suspected drug trafficker dubbed as "Colombia", who has been in custody since July, was released on Friday, after Federal judge Fabiano Verli stated that Villar could pay 15,000 Brazilian reais (approx. $2,800 dollars) and wait out a trial in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas.
Verli said that "the favored person is not a child and must strictly comply with the conditions for this legal favor," as he required Villar to present himself to authorities in Manaus every month while being monitored through an electronic device on his ankle. Villar will be banned from leaving Brazilian soil, and he has been forced to give up his passport.
Phillips and Pereira were shot dead on June 5 in a jungle region near the Brazilian border with Peru and Colombia, the Javari Valley, infested by illegal fishing, logging, mining, and drug trafficking.
In June, President Jair Bolsonaro has come under fire for appearing to blame the missing men, both of whom have vast expertise in the Amazon jungle region.
Bolsonaro stated that "two people in a boat in a region like that, completely wild -- it's an unadvisable adventure. Anything can happen. Maybe there was an accident, maybe they were executed."
On June 16, Villar confessed and explained what happened to Phillips and Pereira. According to investigator Eduardo Alexandre Fontes, Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, 41, aka Pelado, informed authorities he killed the men with a gun.
Pereira's work was aiming to prohibit illegal fishing in the Javari Valley which is an Indigenous reserve and harbors the largest concentration of uncontacted tribes on Earth. Traveling with him was Phillips, who worked as a freelance journalist for The Guardian, The New York Times, and other newspapers, in an attempt to write a book called "How to Save the Amazon."
Native leaders accused the suspect of ordering Pereira's death for setting Indigenous patrols that began to seize lucrative hauls of illicitly caught fish. Police relayed that he managed a group "responsible for selling large amounts of fish for export to neighboring countries."
