A special Senate committee investigating the government’s actions regarding the murders of indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips, who were killed in a remote Amazon region in June, on Tuesday approved its final report.
Senators requested that the Federal Prosecution Office investigate possible neglect by Funai, Brazil’s federal indigenous agency.
After Messrs. Phillips and Pereira were declared missing, President Jair Bolsonaro said that they had gone on an “adventure,” suggesting that they were partially responsible for their fate.
Senator Nelsinho Trad, who drafted the report, said “the state has neglected its special duty of protection.”
“Even if one can discuss the legitimacy of non-indigenous interests in areas not yet demarcated for indigenous peoples, as the current Funai administration defends, there is no doubt that the presence of invaders in demarcated lands, such as the Vale do Javari [reserve], form a tangle of crimes against indigenous people, against the state, and against national interests.”
Mr. Trad added: “Perhaps if the criminals weren’t...
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