Police say remains found in Brazilian Amazon belong to Dom Phillips

Forensic tests carried out on human remains found in the Brazilian Amazon have confirmed that they belonged to Dom Phillips, the British journalist who went missing with the Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira.

Investigators are continuing to work on the other material to both identify the bodies and determine the cause of death, the statement said. It did not mention Bruno Pereira.

Earlier on Friday, police said that two men arrested for the murder had not acted on orders from above, the Brazilian police said on Friday, in an attempt to play down concerns their killing was carried out at the behest of an organised crime group.

The statement was greeted with skepticism by Univaja, the Indigenous group with whom Pereira worked and whose contribution was vital to search efforts over the past week and a half.

The group has sent numerous reports to police in recent months detailing the presence of criminal gangs active in the area, some of whom, it alleged, were connected to the two suspects in custody.

The area is also where illegal loggers and miners are encroaching into the forest and threatening reservations set up for remote Indigenous tribes. Coca and cocaine is also trafficked across the border with Peru, leading some officials to speculate criminal gangs were involved in the killings.

Phillips was writing a book about sustainable development in the Amazon and their boat was intercepted by the killers as they returned to the town of Atalaia do Norte at the end of a four-day trip.