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Europe

Police believe Greece's ambassador to Brazil killed near Rio

Associated Press
Published | Updated
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    This May, 25, 2016 photo released by Brazil's presidential press office shows Greece's ambassador to Brazil, Kyriakos Amiridis, after a government ceremony in Brasilia, Brazil. Authorities believe Amiridis was killed at the home his wife kept in the Rio de Janeiro area after he went missing on Monday, a police investigator said Friday, Dec. 30, 2016. (Marcos Correa/Brazil's presidential press office via AP) (The Associated Press)

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    Francoise Amiridis, the wife of Greece's Ambassador to Brazil Kyriakos Amiridis, arrives at a police station to be interrogated in connection with her husband's disappearance in Belford Roxo, Brazil, Friday, Dec. 30, 2016. Authorities believe that the ambassador was killed at the home his wife kept in the Rio de Janeiro area, after he went missing on Monday in the city of Nova Iguacu, just north of Rio de Janeiro. (Fabiano Rocha/Extra Ag O Globo via AP) (The Associated Press)

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    A burned car sits in the parking lot of the police station in Belford Roxo, Brazil, Friday, Dec. 30, 2016. This burned vehicle, matching the description of the car rented by Greece's ambassador to Brazil Kyriakos Amiridis, was found with a body inside it in Nova Iguacu, but forensics experts have not yet identified the dead person. Amiridis went missing on Monday in the city of Nova Iguacu. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) (The Associated Press)

RIO DE JANEIRO – Authorities believe that Greece's missing ambassador to Brazil was killed at the home that his wife kept in the Rio de Janeiro area, a police investigator said Friday.

Kyriakos Amiridis went missing on Monday in the city of Nova Iguacu, 25 miles (41 kilometers) north of Rio de Janeiro. Greece's Embassy in Brasilia said the ambassador had been on vacation near Rio. The couple lived most of the time in Brasilia, the country's capital.

Rio de Janeiro police investigator Giniton Lages told The Associated Press that blood spots believed to be those of the ambassador were found on a sofa inside the home of his Brazilian wife, Francoise Amiridis. Lages named the wife, along with another woman and two men, as suspects in the case.

A news conference was scheduled for later in the day.

The wife was being interrogated at a police station on Friday in connection with her husband's disappearance. Authorities believe she had been having an extramarital affair with a police officer.

Another police investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he didn't want to be quoted giving details about the case before the news conference is held, said the ambassador and his wife fought three days before Christmas.

A third investigator, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, said that a police officer had acknowledged participating in the ambassador's killing.

Lages said authorities believe the ambassador's body was taken from the house to a car that he had rented on Dec. 21. A burned vehicle matching the description of the rented car was found with a body inside it in Nova Iguacu, but forensics experts have not yet identified the dead person.

The Greek Embassy website in Brazil says 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 2001-2004.