Carbonized body found in car rented by missing Greek ambassador

Rio de Janeiro, Dec 30 (EFE) .- Civilian police agents found in a city of Rio de Janeiro a burned vehicle with a charred body, with the same car plate rented by the Greek ambassador to the country, Kyriakos Amiridis, who is Missing since last Monday, according to reported on Thursday the official sources.

The car was found under a viaduct of the Metropolitan Arch in the municipality of Nova Iguaçu, and inside it was a charred body, according to information from the Civil Police.

"I can not confirm categorically, because the vehicle was burned. I can confirm that it has the same characteristics, it was the same model and had the same record as the car rented by the ambassador," said delegate Evaristo Pontes of the Homicide Baixada Fluminense (DHBF).

Pontes, quoted by Agência Brasil, said that now will be held necessary technical expertise "to know if the body really is the ambassador."

Kyriakos Amiridis, 59, was last seen on Monday and his whereabouts are unknown since then, according to a complaint received on Thursday by the Civil Police.

The case of disappearance is being investigated by a specialized police station of the Civil Police, in the Baixada Fluminense.

The diplomat, who was the consul of Greece in Rio de Janeiro between 2001 and 2004 and took over as ambassador in Brasilia in early 2016, was spending his holiday at the end of the year in the city.

Neither the embassy of Brasília in Greece nor the consulate in Rio de Janeiro gave information about the disappearance.

Amiridis, a lawyer trained at the Aristotle University of Salonica, usually spends a few seasons in Rio de Janeiro, where his family has a residence.

He began his diplomatic career in 1985 and before assuming his position as ambassador in Brasilia, he started in Libya between 2012 and 2016.