October 28, 2022

09:10

Gabriel Abreu – from Amazon Agency

MANAUS – The Federal Police (PF) identified flaws in the cadaveric expertise in the body of the indigenous Maxciel Pereira dos Santos, murdered in 2019, in the city of Tabatinga (distant 1,106 kilometers from Manaus), in a report released on Thursday, 27. The federal experts began their work at the beginning of this month of October. The body of the indigenous activist was exhumed after the family of the former public servant gathered evidence that the authorities were negligent in conducting the case.

Maxciel Pereira dos Santos, who was murdered three years ago, may have been killed in retaliation, according to his family. He worked in the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land, where the indigenous activist Bruno Pereira and the British journalist Dom Phillips were killed in June 2022. Maxciel was killed while riding a motorcycle with his wife and stepdaughter when two men approached on another motorcycle and shot him. Three years later, no suspects have been identified.

Report

According to the Federal Police, an imaging examination was performed – computed tomography. A complementary forensic anthropological examination was also carried out, to be concluded at a later time. The conclusions of this will be presented in a specific report yet to be issued.

It was verified, in the examinations carried out in Brasília, that the victim’s skull had been hit by a single shot that hit the temporo-parietal region, the muscle of the facial mimic responsible for facial expressions. The cause of death, therefore, due to cranial trauma, is the result of a shot fired by a transfixing firearm projectile.

However, from the documentation presented and the sketch itself, a hand-made sketch without the requirement of precise strokes, made available from the expert work carried out in 2019, it cannot be ruled out that another shot had occurred, as reported by the victim’s wife (who was present at the time of the event). Another possible shot may have hit only soft tissue of the victim, and it was not feasible to ascertain in the examination conducted earlier this month, since bone fragments were subject to analysis.

Case

Maxciel was a servant of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) and an advocate for the indigenous people of the Javari Valley. He worked on operations to combat hunting, fishing, mining, and logging in the territory with the largest population of isolated indigenous peoples in the world.

For five years he headed the Environmental and Territorial Management Service of the Javari Valley Regional Coordination, according to the association of Funai employees, Associated Indigenists (INA).

The crime was not clarified and the Federal Police denied having received any dossier on the threats the victim had been suffering at the time of the tragedy.