Puerto Rico Sues U.S. Over Killing of Militant

By Enrique Martel

Reuters, March 24, 2006

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Puerto Rico has sued top U.S. law enforcement officials for allegedly failing to cooperate with a probe into the killing of a militant independence activist in the U.S. Caribbean territory.

The lawsuit was filed on Thursday and names Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller as defendants in the case along with Luis Fraticelli, the FBI special agent in charge of the San Juan division.

Filiberto Ojeda Rios, the 72-year-old founder of Puerto Rico's radical Boricua Popular Army, also known as the Macheteros or machete-wielders, was fatally wounded in a shootout with FBI agents in western Puerto Rico in September.

He had been a fugitive from justice for 15 years and was found shot in the neck and shoulder with a single bullet, the FBI said at the time. Local authorities quickly questioned whether his life could have been spared if he had been given speedy medical attention.

The suit filed by Roberto Sanchez Ramos, the head of Puerto Rico's Justice Department, accuses the defendants of trying to hide the FBI agents involved in the September shootout behind a "mantra of absolute immunity."

The FBI raided a business and five homes in Puerto Rico on February 10, saying it was acting to prevent a potential terrorist attack by the Macheteros.

In a separate lawsuit filed on Thursday, Sanchez Ramos accused Gonzales, Mueller and Fraticelli of refusing to hand over information about the FBI's alleged use of pepper spray on journalists during the raids.

The FBI's chief spokesman in San Juan declined to comment on the lawsuits.

Puerto Rico has a small independence movement, with the with the bulk of the 3.8 million population about evenly divided between remaining a U.S. commonwealth or becoming a U.S. state.