A former police officer from Costa Rica wanted for murder here was arrested in Newark, New Jersey, last week and extradited back to his homeland Saturday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and various media reported.

Carlos Alberto Fernández, 40, was arrested without incident when he left his home Wednesday.

The ex-policeman faces 18 years in Costa Rican prison for the Oct. 25, 2002, shooting of an unarmed robbery suspect fleeing in a car in Tres Ríos, east of San José.

Fernández had escaped in February 2004 to the United States, where law enforcement officials began an investigation into his whereabouts after an alert from the International Police Agency.

Responding to a break-in call from the La Unión community in Tres Ríos, Fernández sprayed the getaway car with an Uzi machine gun, injuring one of the two suspects in the arm and killing the other with a shot through the back, according to a report in the daily La Nación.

-Tico Times