Students found the body of Paul McAuley on Tuesday in a hostel he set up for indigenous schoolchildren in Iquitos

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A forensic expert in Peru has confirmed that the British Catholic missionary and activist Paul McAuley was dead before his body was burned at a hostel he founded in the jungle city of Iquitos.

The head forensic doctor in Peru’s Loreto region, Francisco Moreno, told the Guardian that no traces of carbon dioxide were found in McAuley’s blood indicating he had not inhaled smoke, thus ruling out burning as a possible cause of death.

Students found the body of the 71-year-old on Tuesday in a hostel that he set up for indigenous schoolchildren in the poor Belén neighbourhood.

State prosecutors would not say if they had opened a murder inquiry or what might have been the cause of McAuley’s death. They have questioned six male indigenous students who lived in the hostel.

Moreno said it was difficult to determine the cause of death and more pathological and toxicological tests were being conducted but it could take between three to six months to know the results.

Burnt body of British environmental activist found in Peru Read more

“The body has been largely destroyed, approximately 80% of it. This a complex case,” he said.

Born in Portsmouth, McAuley was a lay Catholic brother with the De La Salle teaching order. He came to the world’s attention in 2010 when Peru ordered his expulsion for helping Amazon tribes to fight against the onslaught of oil and gas companies invading the rainforest.

At the time, local media labelled him as a “Tarzan activist”, “white terrorist” and “incendiary gringo priest”.

A few years after arriving in Peru in 1995, McAuley was awarded an MBE for his work in setting up a school in the poor Punta Piedra shanty in the capital, Lima. Had he not already given the award away, he said in 2010, he would have sent it back to the Queen in protest against British companies’ presence in the rainforest.

Peru’s episcopal conference paid tribute to McAuley and called on the authorities to thoroughly investigate the crime.

“Hermano Paul was an amazing human being,” Julia Urrunaga, the Environmental Investigation Agency’s Peru director, told the Guardian.

“When he moved to the Peruvian Amazon, he focused on supporting young indigenous leaders, helping them to get the tools and means to defend the rights of their communities and their forests. Being around him was inspiring.”