Accused murderers Leslie Pipersburgh and Patrick Robateau who have been on the run for three weeks will be coming home on a Taca flight tomorrow morning. It will be a bitter homecoming for the duo as they will be handed over to the Dragon Unit, processed, and then taken directly to magistrates court in Belize City to be read four charges of murder, one charge of attempted murder, and one charge of robbery. For the two fugitives, traveling under the aliases Rodwell Robateau and Lance Gabourel it had to be a crushing come-uppance when they were busted by Mexican Immigration at Tijuana. And the intercept came not because of any wanted posters, but simply because their fake documents to enter the United States couldn't pass the scrutiny of US immigration agents. That was June 27th, and shortly after they were sent to Mexico City and that's where Belize's ambassador to Mexico connected the dots. Salvador Figueroa told us more via telephone from Mexico City this afternoon.
Indira Craig
Mr. Figueroa, can you tell us what led to the apprehension of Mr. Pipersburgh and Mr. Robateau?
Salvador Figueroa
Well, I think what led to it was the fact that they bought false American papers in Cancun and they tried to cross into the US border from the city of Tijuana here in Mexico as I think people in Belize might know, when this event occurred, when this crime occurred, the police department in Belize had sent out bulletins and "wanted" posters to the neighboring countries, Guatemala and Mexico. We have a very good working relationship with the Mexican officials. Someone in Mexico realized that the papers were false and ended up flying the two men down to Mexico City and brought them to the embassy. When they reached the embassy the day before yesterday, they gave us fake names and upon doing the research on the names so that we could do travel documents for them... I normally as a matter of routine interview these people, when they come in just to make sure that they are okay because 90% of them are Belizeans who manage to get into some kind of trouble here in Mexico, whether they are trying to get to the US or lose their passport, different reasons and I usually go and ask them whether they are okay, if they need anything, or if they want to call anybody. In the course of doing so I saw that these two men looked familiar and I called my staff in and I pulled out an issue of the Belize Times with their pictures on the front page and I asked everybody's opinion if they thought these were the two men because both of them did make an effort to try and change their appearance. Well, at that point, I asked the officials to hold them. I told them that I thought that these were two dangerous and desperate people and that they needed to be vigilant and what I did was that yesterday I went to the detention center and we interviewed each of them separately.
Indira Craig
And how did they seem when you met with them? How were their spirits?
Salvador Figueroa
Actually, they were, they were both very friendly and very humble and its amazing, especially the young man Robateau, he was extremely polite and soft spoken.
Indira Craig
Are the Mexican authorities aware of the reward that was posted and are they asking for it? What will happen with that reward money?
Salvador Figueroa
I don't know what's gonna happen to the reward money, somebody, a couple of people have asked, one person asked me about it, asked me if he could get a piece of the action but this was just some guard who was around and really has no claim to the money. I think its going to be hard to identify who really could claim the money. In my opinion I think the money would be better spent in a charity or something like that because certainly I don't want it and it would be inappropriate for me to accept it and I don't think I can identify anybody who could want it.