[Ppnews] FBI & Puerto Rican Congressman Serrano
Political Prisoner News
PPnews at freedomarchives.org
Fri Apr 21 18:17:45 EDT 2006
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:CongressmanSerrano at mail.house.gov>CongressmanSerrano
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 10:07 PM
Subject: FBI & Congressman Serrano
Dear Friends,
I am forwarding, for your information, a
translation of the exchange between FBI Director
Robert Mueller and myself. This was published in
Puerto Rico's El Nuevo Dia newspaper on March 29,
2006. Included is a transcript of the
exchange. Please feel free to forward to your lists.
Thank you for your interest in this issue.
Adios,
Congressman Jose E. Serrano
"Disinterest" in Investigation on FBI's Conduct.
Wednesday, 29 March 2006
By José A. Delgado
jdelgado at elnuevodia.com
WASHINGTON - It seems that there is not interest
from the FBI Director in finding a middle ground
in the disagreement with the government of Puerto
Rico over local investigations into the recent conduct of the FBI.
In private, the FBI has indicated to Democratic
aides to the Judiciary Committee that it does not
trust the work of Puerto Rican law enforcement agencies.
An exchange Tuesday between Congressman José
Serrano, who is of Puerto Rican birth, and the
director of the FBI, Robert Mueller - in an
Appropriations Subcommittee hearing-speaks for itself.
On one side, Serrano, Democrat of New York, and
number two in rank for the minority on the
Subcommittee that reviews and funds the FBI's
annual budget, emphasizes the belief that the FBI
overstepped in recent operations. Meanwhile,
Mueller concentrates on defending his agents
without opening the way for an agreement or
denying that he does not trust in the Puerto Rican government.
Serrano began his questioning with a general
reference to the criticisms that have been made
about the FBI for its role in the death of
Machetero leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios on the 23rd
of September, 2005. He refers to allegations that
the independence leader could have survived if he
had not been left to bleed for more than 18
hours. He also brings up the FBI's actions
against journalists during an operation on February 10, 2006.
The following is a partial transcript of the
Congressman Serrano's questioning of the FBI chief.
SERRANO (...) And so one of my questions to you
is, in terms of an investigation, do you believe
that federal agents in Puerto Rico are obligated
to comply with commonwealth subpoenas?
MUELLER: Well, let me, if I could, before I
answer that question, perhaps put in context the
events in which you discuss, which I know are difficult in Puerto Rico.
But, first of all, the arrest of Mr. Ojeda Rios.
You're well aware that he had been a fugitive for
a number of years, was convicted in abstentia,
being not only a participant in, I think it was,
the 1984 robbery up in Hartford but had been
leader of the Macheteros who were responsible
over a number of years for a number of terrorist
attacks in which persons have been killed.
I think it is wrong to say that he could have
been captured at any point in time. He was known
to be dangerous and known to be armed. And,
again, to put it into context, as we discussed
shortly thereafter, in the course of an effort to
apprehend Mr. Ojeda Rios, one of our agents was
shot in the stomach and two others -- and he is
lucky to be alive today -- and two others were
shot in the head, and they were lucky not to have
been injured because they had appropriate head gear.
And so putting it in context, I understand what
you're saying but I do want to put it in the
appropriate context. As we discussed shortly
after that incident, because of the questions
raised, I asked the inspector general to do an
independent investigation, and the inspector
general is now doing that independent
investigation, and I look forward to seeing the results of that.
With regard to the other incident, my
understanding is that six search warrants are
being executed, that at one of those places in
which the search warrant was being executed, as
the agents were leaving, the perimeter, which had
been established and which one establishes
whenever one does a search warrant, was broached
by a number of people and that at that time there
was mace used but at that time agents were pelted
with rocks, cars were damaged and the like.
Now, again, putting that in the context, what
I've asked for is an investigation there. I
offered the investigation to the inspector
general. The inspector general requested that our
inspection division do that investigation. We're
currently doing it, and it is being monitored by the inspector general.
Whenever there is an instance such as this, I
have in the past and will continue to seek
independent investigations so that we can determine what the actual facts are.
In final answer to your question, in terms of
whether or not agents of the FBI need respond to
a subpoena from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,
I have to leave that to the Department of Justice. It's a legal issue.
SERRANO: OK. On the issue of just -- I know that
in a way this is somewhat heresy but it has to be
brought up, two days after your office contacted
me you in fact were kind enough to leave a
message on my cell phone that morning immediately
saying that you were getting on the
investigation, and I told you later that I appreciated that.
Two days later, and, again, just for the record,
I took a call in my office from a very distraught
person who said, "I'm a former Marine, I am
pro-statehood for Puerto Rico, you can't get more
American than that," he told me. "And I'm very
distraught because I've been an FBI informant for
the last couple of years and I told the FBI where
Ojeda Rios was at the every step of the way for
the last couple of years. I told them when he was
in church, I told them when he was at the
supermarket, I told them when he went for a jog,
and I feel somehow responsible that he was killed
because he could have been gotten somewhere else
and yet they chose to do it this way."
Now, I didn't know what to do with that
information. I'm certainly not going to call the
FBI and say, "Guess what? Is this guy one of your
informants," because I know what the answer to that would be.
MUELLER: I would have appreciated it.
SERRANO: Well, but you read about it. You read
about it, because what I did was I told him, "You
should contact a newspaper person who might
actually speak to you," and that person put a
whole newspaper perhaps somewhat on the line by
writing a couple of columns in New York verifying
to the extent that they can verify that this guy
gave information that indicated that he was
indeed an informant and he had told the FBI where
Mr. Ojeda Rios was all of the time. No one
questioned the fact that a warrant for his arrest
could be executed. He was a fugitive, period.
Everybody questions why local authorities, and
here is the crux of this issue, why on all these
incidents local authorities are not allowed to
participate to the point where the state, the
superintendent of police in Puerto Rico is on the
record writing to Congress and writing to anyone
who will listen that he was never informed that
the FBI was there, that they wanted to go and
participate. This is the chief of police. Mr.
Toledo is a former FBI agent, 23 years of
service, a hostage negotiations expert, and he
said nothing that was done to that moment could
have prevented us from speaking to Mr. Ojeda and doing some other things.
And I told you personally and I pointed out in
public how bad we all feel about any FBI agent
that was hurt during this incident.
But one of the things that happened was that the
attorney general says that the FBI called him or
the U.S. Attorney's Office called him, told him,
"Get your people over to the place. This is what's going on."
When they went over there they were asked to
remove themselves, and one of the questions that
continues in Puerto Rico is, why were local
officials not informed and when they showed up
turned away to the point now that leads us to
another issue, and I want you to just see if you
can comment on this, at a briefing that the FBI
had with the Judiciary Committee staff, they said
that they usually do not let people, law
enforcement in Puerto Rico know when they're
going to be involved in an operation because they
can't trust the local law enforcement with that information.
Now, first of all, do you know about that? And,
secondly, if that's true, then we have a bigger
problem here, because any locality that can't be
trusted with information by the FBI, then there's
an issue that this committee and the FBI, the
White House and everybody has to deal with. How
much can you tell me about how much trust there
is between the FBI and the local law enforcement authority?
And, lastly, on that issue, even if that's true,
why would the FBI want to promote that as a
discussion in public that local authorities
cannot be trusted rather than working on it to resolve that problem?
MUELLER: Well, you've asked a lot of questions
here. As to much of the factual detail...
SERRANO: And I'm being as brief as I can, believe me.
MUELLER: Yes. As to much of the factual detail,
again, the inspector general is looking at those
facts that you allege, including what you
indicated were at least heresy from this
informant. I can tell you I was no aware. I do
not believe that we had Ojeda Rios identified,
this locality identified for a substantial period
of time before the incident occurred.
With regards, and I'll speak generally, not
specifically, there are occasions throughout the
country where, for whatever reasons, there may be
individuals in particular police departments whom
we believe cannot be trusted. I'm not going to
speak to Puerto Rico specifically, but this
happens. And when it does happen, we work around it.
I can tell you, as you well know, our second
priority in the criminal side of the house is
civil rights. We're often called upon, whether it
be public corruption or civil rights
investigations, to investigate police
departments, to investigate those who on day one
were executing search warrants with but on day
two come under suspicion because of violation of
civil rights or public corruption. And those
cases where we feel that there is a risk to the
investigation, then we keep it tight to the vest.
Again, I want to emphasize that I'm not talking
about any particular jurisdiction, only to say that this does happen.
SERRANO: Now, if you're not aware, and I would
bet you are but I'm not going to ask if you're
aware -- there is a major image problem for the
FBI in Puerto Rico. Folks who live in Puerto
Rico, for the most part, dramatically so, are
very supportive of all federal agencies. That's
the relationship for 107 years, 108 years. Yet
the FBI continues to run into deeper and deeper
discontent from the public from all segments of
society. Whether they're pro-statehood or for independence, there's a concern.
What can be done or does the FBI care in trying
to promote a better image in Puerto Rico? And why
is there a belief that the FBI will continue to
behave in a way that folks in Puerto Rico think
is not proper and nothing will ever come of any
investigation? I mean, right now the state
government is trying to conduct an investigation.
They've sued you and Mr. Gonzales and the whole
Justice Department because they can't get any cooperation from you, basically.
Mr. Fratchatelli (ph), the local director, came
out and said, "They did a great job and that's
all there is to it." "With great dominion," was
the way he said they handled the operation.
What can be done to improve the image of the FBI?
MUELLER: Let me start by saying, yes, we care
very much about the image of the FBI in Puerto
Rico. I am tremendously disappointed that events
have resulted in a undercutting of the trust that
the people of Puerto Rico legitimately should
place in the FBI. And one of the reasons that I
asked the inspector general to do the
investigation is so that we have some independent
entity that is looking at it and will report back on what happened.
And I ask the people of Puerto Rico to understand
that in these particular incidents we were
executing our responsibilities as federal
officers and in doing so these events happened. I
would hope they would put it into context and
wait for the results of the investigation to see
exactly what happened. My hope is that the
results of the investigations will assuage some
of their concerns about the FBI.
But I will say that the FBI is, whether in Puerto
Rico or around the country, those agents do a
terrific job. They are protecting the people of
Puerto Rico, not just from terrorists but from
bank robbers, from narcotraffickers, from those
who commit white collar crime, and that the
people of Puerto Rico, while this may be a
sensitive issue for them, should not forget the
role that the FBI is undertaking to secure their
safety from terrorists, criminals, narcotraffickers in Puerto Rico.
SERRANO: Let me close with this, Mr. Chairman: A
couple of years ago, March 16, 2000, actually --
I needed to know this for this morning's meeting
-- I asked Director Freeh how much the FBI was
willing to talk about the previous 60 years of
the way that the FBI had treated the Puerto Rican
independence movement. And to the shock of
everybody, starting with me, Director Freeh said
that there was a time when the FBI had not
behaved properly and that he was hoping that this
could be remedied. And immediately, beginning
with that day, he began releasing, and you have
continued, something I appreciate, releasing over
1,800,000 pages of files on the Puerto Rico independence movement.
Most of them, admittedly by Director Freeh and
now by people who've analyzed it, showing that
there was a directed attempt to break and destroy the independence movement.
There are some folks who took that as an
indication that a new day was coming for the
FBI's behavior in Puerto Rico over those 60
years. Now, many of us are afraid that some of
that behavior has started again. And so all I can
tell you is be aware of that. Be aware of the
fact that you're hearing this from a member of
Congress who's supportive of the work the FBI
does, who's never held back on supporting your budget or on your activities.
But right now, you know, you and I are in the
same profession. We do 100 good things. We do one
bad one and the people will remember the bad one.
Right now the folks of Puerto Rico may not be
concentrating on all the good things that you
talk about, which we know to be true, but on the
fact that on two incidents within the last year
they behaved the way they used to behave for 60 years, and that's not good.
MUELLER: Well, I would disagree with you in terms
of their behaving the way they did in the past. We have not gone...
SERRANO: No, no. I'm saying that the people
across the board are concentrating on that as a
sign that that behavior is back and never left,
and that's not good for you, it's not good for
me, and it's not good for our country.
MUELLER: And I ask you to keep an open mind. I
ask the people of Puerto Rico to keep an open
mind. I had to talk to the wife of that agent who
was shot in the stomach. I had to talk to those
agents who barely survived that night. And so I ask them to keep an open mind.
SERRANO: Someday I'll have you speak to some of
the people who feel that the FBI years ago did great harm to their family.
The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org
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