November 21, 2007 | 12:00am
After more than 20 years of hiding, a 48-year-old suspected American fugitive described by United States authorities as “armed and dangerous” was finally arrested the other day by operatives of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Cavite province.
Head Agent Claro de Castro Jr., of the NBI-Interpol Division chief, said they apprehended Robert Saquil Besabe from the house of his current girlfriend at Barangay Paliparan in Dasmariñas, Cavite.
A US court charged Besabe for first-degree murder and second-degree felony murder for allegedly killing Carolyn Montoya, who was pregnant, and injured his girlfriend Eleanor Volasco.
In 1982, he was charged before the Washington State Superior Court for King County. Two years later, the Western District Court in Washington charged him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution after learning that he fled the state.
Twenty-three years later, or last Sept. 13, Besabe went to the US Embassy in Manila and requested a replacement for his US passport that expired last April 1, 1992.
The NBI caught Besabe after he tried to apply for a driver’s license at the Land Transportation Office and left behind two addresses: one in Dasmariñas, Cavite, and another at Sun Valley in Parañaque. – Evelyn Macairan, Carmela Ann Santos
