DOJ confirms Teves’ arrest

CEBU, Philippines — Former lawmaker Arnolfo “Arnie” Teves, Jr., the alleged mastermind behind the killing of the late Negros Oriental governor Roel Degamo, was arrested Thursday afternoon in Timor-Leste or East Timor.

No less than the Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed this in a press statement posted on its Facebook page, saying “former Negros Oriental congressman and designated terrorist Arnolfo “Arnie” Teves, Jr.” was arrested while playing golf in Dili, East Timor around 4 p.m. yesterday.

Teves was accused of being the mastermind behind the fatal attack on March 4, 2023 that resulted in the death of the late governor and eight others.

Degamo was distributing assistance to several beneficiaries when a group of armed men barged into his residence in broad daylight in Brgy. San Isidro, Pamplona, Negros Oriental and shot him and the other victims.

Teves was wanted in the country for murder, frustrated murder, and attempted murder but he fled the country and sought asylum in East Timor.

Yesterday, the International Police (Interpol) and the National Central Bureau (NCB) in Dili, in coordination with East Timorese Police, finally arrested him.

The NCB-Dili, NCB-Manila, and the Dili Philippine Embassy are already working so Teves is brought back to the country, following his arrest.

“Teves, who has been the subject of a Red Notice, is now under the custody of Timorese Police while his extradition to the Philippines is being worked out by NCB-Dili in coordination with the team from NCB-Manila and the Dili Philippine Embassy,” DOJ said in the same statement.

Teves was placed under Interpol’s red notice last Feb. 27.

Though not an international arrest warrant, according to Interpol, a red notice is a "request to all law enforcement worldwide to locate and arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.”

“We already confirmed that the mastermind of my husband’s murder has finally been captured by Timor-Leste police. Words cannot express how it feels to finally see the man who terrorized our province and brutally murdered my husband surrounded by police,” also said Pamplona Mayor Janice Degamo, the wife of the late governor, in a Facebook post.

Meanwhile, the Police Regional Office-7, through spokesperson Police Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Ace Pelare, assured that the pieces of evidence and testimonies against Teves are ready for Teves’ trial.

“We are ready also in case that our arresting officers will be called to testify. We are very confident that what we have forwarded to the Department of Justice is an airtight case … and in case magsugod na ang hearing, then our witnesses will be ready also to testify,” he said. (CEBU NEWS)