Brazil Cop Admits to Killing Greek Ambassador Over Affair

Police searching for Greece's missing ambassador to Brazil found his burnt-out car in a Rio suburb Thursday with a body inside. Forensic experts are trying to determine whether the body is that of Ambassador Kyriakos Amiridis, who was last heard from Monday when he phoned his wife, the BBC reports. On Friday, a Rio de Janeiro police officer confessed to murdering the ambassador, Reuters reports. Sergio Moreira, 29, told police he was romantically involved with Amiridis' wife, Françoise, and that she asked him to kill her husband. Françoise was the one to report Amiridis missing Wednesday.

Amiridis was visiting Rio from Brasilia to attend New Year's celebrations on Copacabana Beach. Before the grim find, police said they did not believe the ambassador had been kidnapped, since nobody had been in touch to demand ransom, the Guardian reports. Amiridis, 59, took the Brazil post at the start of this year after four years as Greece's ambassador to Libya. He and his 40-year-old wife have a 10-year-old daughter. Moreira told police he murdered the ambassador inside the Rio home the Amiridises owned. Both he and Amiridis' wife have been arrested. (More Brazil stories.)