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Brazil police believe body found in Rio is missing Greek ambassador (UPDATE)

Other News Materials 30 December 2016 04:13 (UTC +04:00)
Brazilian police suspect a body discovered inside a charred vehicle in Rio de Janeiro is Greece's ambassador to Brazil who went missing three days ago
Brazil police believe body found in Rio is missing Greek ambassador (UPDATE)

04:13 (GMT+4) Brazilian police suspect a body discovered inside a charred vehicle in Rio de Janeiro is Greece's ambassador to Brazil who went missing three days ago, television channel Globo reported on Thursday.

A police spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment, Reuters reported.

Ambassador Kyriakos Amiridis, 59, was last seen Monday evening leaving the home of friends of his Brazilian wife in a poor and violent suburb of Rio's metropolitan area, police had said earlier on Thursday.

A Rio state police official said the ambassador's wife reported him as missing on Wednesday.

Globo showed images of the burned-out white car in the Nova Iguacu neighborhood where the ambassador went missing. The station reported that the license plates on the car matched those of Amiridis' rental vehicle.

An official at the Greek Embassy in Brasilia would not confirm the ambassador was missing, saying only that he was on vacation in Rio and expected to return to Brasilia on Jan. 9.

Rio police inspector Evaristo Pontes had earlier told the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper that he did not believe the ambassador was kidnapped.

"We're following some leads, but not that one. If it had been (a kidnapping), those who took him would have made contact by now," he said.

Amiridis previously served as Greece's consul general in Rio from 2001 to 2004.

More recently he was Greece's ambassador to Libya from 2012 until he took the top Brazil post at the beginning of 2016.

Brazil's Foreign Ministry said it had no comment on the case, other than to say it was being fully pursued by police.

In Athens, Greece's Foreign Ministry had no comment.

21:39 (GMT+4) Rio de Janeiro police said on Thursday that they are investigating the disappearance of Greece's ambassador to Brazil, AP reported.

Kyriakos Amiridis was last seen Monday night, the police said in a statement. A police spokeswoman later told The Associated Press that a family member reported him missing in the city of Nova Iguacu, 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Rio.

Neither Greece's embassy in capital of Brasilia nor the Greek consulate in Rio replied to requests for comment.

According to the embassy website, Amiridis started his career as diplomat in 1985 in Athens and became Greece's top diplomat in Brazil in 2016.

He earlier was Greece's ambassador to Libya and worked as consul in Rio from 2001 and 2004.

Brazilian news website G1 reported that Amiridis' wife has an apartment in Nova Iguacu.

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