Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetFiliberto Ojeda Ríos
Puerto Rican political activist
Date of Birth: 26-Apr-1933
Place of Birth: Naguabo, Puerto Rico, United States
Date of Death: 23-Sep-2005
Profession: revolutionary
Zodiac Sign: Taurus 
About Filiberto Ojeda Ríos
- Filiberto Ojeda Ríos (April 26, 1933 – September 23, 2005) was the commander-in-chief ("Responsable General") of the Boricua Popular Army (Ejército Popular Boricua, a.k.a., Los Macheteros).
- The group campaigned for, and supported, the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States.
- In 2001, FBI Director Louis J.
- Freeh claimed the group was linked to acts of terrorism, but Ronald Fernandez, scholar of Puerto Rican history, suggests such labeling was an act of political convenience by the United States Government, intended to "shift the blame for any attacks on U.S.
- policy or personnel from us to them".
- Ríos was also a founder of the FALN.Ojeda Ríos was a fugitive from 1990 to 2005, wanted by the FBI for his role in the 1983 Wells Fargo depot robbery in West Hartford, Connecticut, as well as a bail bond default on 23 September 1990, a date that coincided with the anniversary of the Puerto Rican pro-independence uprising known as El Grito de Lares.
- On this date in 2005, he was shot and killed during an exchange of gunfire with FBI agents after they surrounded the house in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico where he was living.
- The FBI operation was questioned by local Puerto Rican authorities as well as international organizations. The killing of Ojeda Ríos was mourned by members of the Puerto Rican Independence movement and by Puerto Ricans in general, who expressed their indignation through repeated protests.
- Some members of the statehood movement and supporters of the Commonwealth also joined in the criticism of the federal handling of the FBI's shooting incident. In late March 2006, the Puerto Rico Department of Justice sued federal authorities, including FBI Director Robert Mueller and US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, seeking an injunction to force the federal government authorities to provide the Commonwealth government with information related to the operation in which Ojeda Ríos died, as well as another FBI operation in which the FBI searched the homes of independence supporters affiliated with Los Macheteros.
- A US District Court judge ruled against the Puerto Rico Department of Justice.
- The case was subsequently appealed to a federal appeals court which ruled that "disclosing information on the Ojeda raid 'would reveal how the FBI goes about capturing a fugitive who is believed to be dangerous.'" The Commonwealth Government then took the case to the United States Supreme Court but "the Supreme Court...refused to consider [the] lawsuit by Puerto Rico seeking FBI files in the killing of Puerto Rican independence supporter Filiberto Ojeda Rios."In response to questions raised in media accounts and by public officials in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Robert Mueller requested an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice.
- The resulting report concluded that "the FBI agents’ use of force in the Ojeda operation did not violate the Department of Justice Deadly Force Policy" and that Ojeda Ríos had initiated the exchange of gunfire.
- The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Civil Rights Commission subsequently conducted its own investigation of the incident and issued a report on 22 September 2011 wherein the Commission called Ojeda Ríos's death an "illegal killing".
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