Brazil police believe body found in Rio is missing Greek ambassador

Brazilian security officials suspect a charred body discovered inside a burned-out car in Rio de Janeiro is that of the Greek ambassador to Brazil, who went missing earlier this week.

On Thursday, Brazil’s Portuguese-language Globo television network showed images of the burned-out white car under a flyover in Rio's impoverished northern neighborhood of Nova Iguacu, where 59-year-old Kyriakos Amiridis went missing on Monday.

The station also reported that the license plate of the car matched that of the rental vehicle the ambassador was using at the time.

Forensic experts are carrying out tests to establish the body's identity.

Amiridis was last seen on Monday night after going out of the apartment of his Brazilian wife’s friends in a poor and violent suburb of Rio's metropolitan area. The ambassador's wife formally declared him missing on Wednesday.

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

A Greek embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Amiridis was expected to fly back to Brasilia on January 9.

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

More recently, he was Greece's ambassador to Libya from 2012 to the beginning of this year, when he took the top diplomatic post in Brazil.

Rio has a high crime rate and violent incidents are not unusual, particularly between Christmas and New Year when hundreds of thousands of tourists travel to the metropolis.

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