Enlarge image
People demonstrate in Rio de Janeiro for justice for the assassination of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips
Photo: LUCIOLA VILLELA / AFP
Journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira are believed to have been shot dead while trying to photograph the boat of their suspected killers in the Brazilian Amazon.
Before the double murder, Pereira asked his companion Phillips to take a photo of the boat, prosecutors said on Friday.
The details emerged after charges of the crime were filed against three men on Thursday.
Two of them confessed to the crime.
Research on violence against indigenous people
Pereira was killed by three bullets, one of which hit him in the back, prosecutors said.
"He had no chance to defend himself," the investigators emphasized.
Phillips, on the other hand, was only killed because he was accompanying Pereira.
The Briton Phillips and the Brazilian Pereira had researched a book about violence against indigenous people and the protection of the rainforest in the Javari Valley.
Gold miners, poachers and drug gangs are active in the region, which borders Peru and Colombia.
A staunch supporter of indigenous peoples' rights, Pereira had received several death threats before his death.
According to police, the murder could be linked to illegal fishing, an issue Pereira is said to have been close to her heart.
ani/AFP