Eliesio Morubo, the lawyer for the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA), said the judge agreed to keep the fisherman jailed for 30 days because the case involved a possible "heinous crime" such as murder and hiding bodies. State police detectives involved in the investigation have told Reuters they are focusing on poachers and illegal fisherman in the area, who clashed often with Pereira as he organized indigenous patrols of the local reservation.
Search teams in Brazil have discovered "apparently human" remains in the river where the missing British journalist and Brazilian indigenous expert were last seen in the Amazon rainforest.