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| FBI Surrounding Macheteros Leader's Home |
| 2005-09-24 |
| (Hormigueros, Puerto Rico) The FBI kept a tight cordon Saturday around the home of a Puerto Rican nationalist leader wanted in the 1983 robbery of a Connecticut armored truck but could not say whether the suspect was alive... With police and federal agents blocking access to the rural farmhouse, the FBI said it was unable to determine if Filiberto Ojeda Rios was killed in a gun battle with authorities. One FBI agent was wounded. Earlier, a law enforcement agent speaking on condition of anonymity and Hector Pesquera, president of the Hostiano independence movement, told The Associated Press the nationalist leader was killed when the FBI closed in to arrest him Friday. The FBI detained Ojedo Rios' wife, Elma Rosado Barbosa, who was unharmed, the agency said in a statement. The robbery of the Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Conn., is considered an act of domestic terrorism because it allegedly was carried out by 19 members of the Puerto Rican nationalist Macheteros, or Cane Cutters. Law enforcement agents were reluctant to speak on the record about an FBI-controlled operation that they said included U.S. Marshals, Puerto Rican police and Puerto Rican prosecutors. 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. In 1990, he cut off an electronic monitoring bracelet and became a fugitive. 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... Only about $80,000 of the $7 million stolen has been recovered. The federal government believes most was used in Puerto Rico to finance the independence movement. 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. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #4 Didn't get much bang for that $6,920,000 did they. Spent on the "indepdence movement" my A^%! |
| Posted by: Snaviting Snaiter1250 2005-09-24 21:52 |
| #3 The term to use for descibing "dead" Ts is "stable". |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2005-09-24 20:24 |
| #2 He's dead, Jim. http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050924/D8CQQRP01.html |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2005-09-24 16:57 |
| #1 Clinton granted a twerrorist clemency. Brass balls on that man to even open his mouth about Bush. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2005-09-24 13:47 |