President Barack Obama Pardons Puerto Rican Oscar Lopez Rivera

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

In what could be some of his last decisions in the White House, President Barack Obama included in a pardon and sentence reduction package the Puerto Rican independence leader Óscar López Rivera, after spending 35 years in prison for his actions with the group. terrorist Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN)

López Rivera, who has been one of the FALN leaders, also known as the Macheteros, has become a symbol of supporters of the island's independence and efforts for his liberation had become a popular demand.

According to Puerto Rican newspaper Primera Hora, the Obama administration had received a petition for pardon accompanied by more than 100,000 signatures.

This would be the second time that FALN members receive a presidential pardon, after Bill Clinton granted that act of grace to a dozen members of this and other similar groups in 1999. López Rivera was to be another pardoned on that occasion, but he rejected them because other colleagues of his stayed in prison

Multiple entertainment stars such as singer Ricky Martin, actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, former Calle 13 Residente member and salsa legend Rubén Blades had expressed their support for the pardon which his supporters consider to be a political prisoner.

López Rivera was arrested in 1981 and accused of conspiracy, use of force to commit robbery, transport of weapons and conspiracy to transport explosives, charges of which he was found guilty and for which he was sentenced to 55 years. In 1988, 15 years were added to his sentence after being accused of a plot to escape prison.

The FALN was responsible for more than 70 attacks between 1974 and 1983 in New York, Chicago and Washington DC in which five people died, several dozen were injured and caused millions in damages.

They say he is a freedom fighter, that he has done all those things, that he is not violent. But what did you do if you weren't a terrorist? There is no answer because it is,” Joe Connor, who was 9 years old when his father died in a FALN bombing at a popular Manhattan restaurant, told NPR radio.