Nearly six years after Marine Corps Maj. George Anikow was killed in a brawl in Manila, Philippines, two Filipino men have been captured after avoiding authorities.
Galicano Datu III and Crispin dela Paz were arrested separately by agents of the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation. The agency announced the seizure of Datu and dela Paz on Monday.
Anikow was stabbed to death in a brawl on Nov. 24, 2012, outside the gate of an upscale residential area in the Makati area of Manila. According to Philippine National Police medicolegal practitioner Voltaire Nulud, who performed the autopsy, the fatal wound was a stab to the neck that severed the carotid artery, causing a copious loss of blood and hemorrhagic shock.
According to NBI director Dante Gierran, Datu and dela Paz “were charged and convicted for brutally killing” Anikow.
RELATED
Datu and dela Paz, were convicted of homicide while free on bail, according to The New York Times. The original charges had been downgraded from murder, a change that may have been caused by Datu and dela Paz both coming from influential families, the Times reported.
However, new arrest warrants for Datu and dela Paz were issued this spring after the judge who had downgraded the original charges was dismissed by the Supreme Court of the Philippines for gross ignorance of the law.
Datu was captured by NBI agents in a condominium owned by his girlfriend in Mandaluyong City. Datu went into hiding in April after discovering that an arrest warrant had been issued against him. Dela Paz was captured after a car chase.
Anikow left behind three children, according to Task & Purpose, and his U.S. diplomat wife, who was then-posted in Manila, Philippines.
Noah Nash is a rising senior at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. At school, he is the editor in chief of the Collegian Magazine and the digital director of the Collegian, Kenyon's newspaper.
