[News] Machetero leader killed by FBI in Puerto Rico

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Man Dies in FBI Stakeout in Puerto Rico 
Staff and agencies
24 September, 2005





By FRANK GAUD, 4 minutes ago 

HORMIGUEROS, Puerto Rico - A Puerto Rican nationalist leader wanted in 
the 1983 robbery of a Connecticut armored truck died during an FBI 
stakeout of the farmhouse where he was hiding, the island‘s police 
chief said Saturday. 

"Filiberto Ojeda Rios is definitely dead," Toledo told WAPA radio. 

FBI spokesman Louis Feliciano refused to comment on Toledo‘s remarks. 
Earlier Saturday, the FBI had said it did not know if Ojeda was alive. 

The FBI detained Ojeda Rios‘ wife, Elma Rosado Barbosa, who was 
unharmed, the agency said in a statement. 

The FBI has asked police for equipment to detect explosives in the 
farmhouse, Toledo said earlier. 

"This was done on purpose ... to try to humiliate us," Jorge Farinacci, 
president of the Socialist Front, said at the demonstration. "It‘s to 
tell us: ‘You do not have the right to independence.‘" 

Ojeda Rios, leader of the Macheteros, is one of four men still wanted 
for the Wells Fargo robbery. He was released on bail in 1988 after 
about three years in prison awaiting trial in Connecticut. 

He was convicted in absentia in 1992 on charges of robbery, conspiracy 
and transportation of stolen money and was sentenced to 55 years in 
prison. Ojeda Rios sometimes grants interviews to Puerto Rican 
reporters and issues statements in favor of independence for this U.S. 
possession of 4 million people. 

The United States seized Puerto Rico in the Spanish-American War. 
Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens but cannot vote for U.S. president, 
have no voting representation in the U.S. Congress and pay no federal 
taxes. 

Three other men remain fugitives in the case, including Victor Manuel 
Gerena, a former Wells Fargo guard who allegedly injected two other 
guards with a sleeping substance to facilitate the robbery. He is on 
the FBI‘s most-wanted list. 

One man imprisoned in the case, Juan Segarra Palmer, was granted 
clemency by President Clinton in 1999. 

 



Claude Marks
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977