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Suspects Caught After Five Years On The Run For Killing Marine Major

Sgt. Pete Thibodeau

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Evie Fordham Politics and Health Care Reporter
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Two suspects in the 2012 fatal stabbing of Marine Maj. George Anikow were re-apprehended after they spent almost five years on the run.

Authorities in the Philippines caught Galicano Datu III on Tuesday and Crispin dela Paz on Thursday, according to a statement by the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines on Monday. A total of four men were suspects in the killing. (RELATED: Woman Crying ‘Allahu Akbar’ Stabs Two In Southern France Supermarket)

Anikow was killed while living in the Philippines with wife Laura Anikow, a diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines, and three children. The New Jersey native had served in Afghanistan in 2009, according to his obituary.

Anikow was killed in a fight near his home in the upscale neighborhood of Makati in Manila. The four suspects were trying to gain access to the compound where Anikow lived, but did not have the proper credentials to pass through the security gate, according to the Daily Mail.

Suspects Datu and Dela Paz had been put on trial in the Philippines, but the judge downgraded their charges from murder to homicide and granted them probation. By the time the judge was removed for “oppressive disregard” for the evidence in several trials, Datu and Dela Paz were already in hiding. (RELATED: Marines Look To Staff New Cyber Force With Veteran Members Of The Corps)

U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim congratulated the Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation for “bringing some measure of justice to this senseless crime” on Monday.

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