FBI chief seeks review of fatal shooting

By Natalia Muñoz

The Republican, September 28, 2005

The FBI director has called for an independent review by the inspector general into the agency's fatal shooting of a Puerto Rican fugitive and leader of an armed political struggle following requests from all three Puerto Rican congressmen and the island's leadership.

The death of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, 72, after a standoff with dozens of FBI agents in Puerto Rico Friday has already prompted protests from the island's governor, who was not informed of the operation.

John Miller, a spokesman for the FBI, said, "Based on the preliminary information available to us, we have every reason to believe the agents acted properly."

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller called for an independent probe by the Inspector General, Miller said, because a "number of supporters of Ojeda Ríos, as well as some public officials in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and elsewhere, have raised questions and in some instances made allegations about the FBI's handling of the incident."

Ojeda Rios had been sought by the FBI for 15 years, since he slipped away from federal authorities while on bail for his role in the 1983 $7.1 million heist of a Wells Fargo armored truck in Hartford. He led Los Macheteros, or Cane Cutters, in an armed political struggle for the island's independence in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The group killed two off-duty sailors and exploded nine empty jet fighters in the 1980s in Puerto Rico.

"The FBI acted in Puerto Rico in a manner that can only be described as colonist," states the letter signed by U.S. Reps. José Serrano, D-New York; Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill.; and Nydia Velázquez, D-New York.

"Was the FBI aware that any action taken on this particular day against a renowned leader of a group that advocates for the independence of Puerto Rico would be almost universally interpreted as a provocation and insult?"

He was killed Sept. 23, a day that Puerto Ricans commemorate in honor of an 1868 uprising against Spanish tyranny.

Ojeda Rios' shooting has triggered angry backlash against the U.S. government not seen since a military jetfighter practicing maneuvers misfired a 500-pound bomb that accidentally killed a civilian guard on the island of Vieques in 1999. That incident led to four years of continued protests that prompted the U.S. Navy to abandon its exercises there in 2003.

According to island press accounts, thousands paid their respects to Ojeda Rios at two wakes held in the San Juan capitol Monday. He was buried in his Naguabo east coast hometown yesterday.

His wife, Elma Beatriz Rosado Barbosa, said Ojeda Rios had urged her to leave the farmhouse to escape being killed by the FBI, she told local media yesterday.

FBI agents ordered her to kneel but she refused, she said, and so was thrown to the ground and handcuffed.

"Later they put blinders on my eyes and at that moment I knew in my heart that they were going to kill him," she said.

One sharpshooter's bullet in his right clavicle wounded him and his lifeless body was recovered by island authorities 24 hours later, a full day after the shooting when the FBI permitted them to enter the house.

"It is strange to me that this man was killed on Sept. 23, and in a way that is very suspicious," said Serrano, a member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee. "My main concern is that this could be, once again, a certain behavior that we have deplored in the past from the FBI and other federal authorities."

The Associated Press and island press accounts contributed to this report.