Kyriakos Amiridis’ wife denies participating in killing but says she knew of crime as police question her account.

Greece’s ambassador to Brazil was murdered in a plot hatched by his Brazilian wife and her police officer lover, who confessed to the crime, officials said.

The envoy, Kyriakos Amiridis, 59, was killed on Monday by the officer, Sergio Gomez Moreira, Rio homicide division chief Evaristo Pontes told a news conference on Friday.

Amiridis’s charred body was found on Thursday in Rio in his burned-out rental car, a day after his Brazilian wife, Francoise de Souza Oliveira, declared him missing.

Oliveira, 40, and Moreira, 29, both admitted to having an affair, police said.

The pair is in custody, along with Moreira’s 24-year-old cousin, Eduardo Tedeschi, who allegedly also took part. According to the homicide division chief, Oliveira denied participating in the murder itself, but confessed she knew of the crime.

Family vacation

Amiridis, who was named ambassador this year, had been on a family vacation with his wife in the north of Rio de Janeiro since December 21. They had been due to fly back to the capital Brasilia on January 9.

His wife had originally told police that he had left the Rio apartment they were staying in, taken the car and not returned.

But her version had contradictions, and after Amiridis’s body was found in the burned-out car under a bridge, police took Oliveira in for more questioning, and also detained Moreira.

Traces of blood were reportedly found on a sofa in the apartment Amiridis and Oliveira had been using, leading investigators to believe he had been killed there, then his body was placed in the rental car and driven to the spot it was found.

Amiridis, a 59-year-old career diplomat, was named as ambassador to Brazil this year [AFP]

Pontes said that Oliveira had offered Tedeschi the equivalent of $25,000 to help with murdering the ambassador.

Moreira acknowledged that he and Amiridis had had a physical fight and that he had strangled the ambassador in self-defence.

Amiridis had previously served Greece’s consul general in Rio from 2001 to 2004, where he met Oliveira. The couple has a 10-year-old daughter.

A Greek police team was headed for Brazil to take part in the investigation, while Greece’s ambassador in Argentina was travelling to Brasilia, Athens said.