Assassination in Puerto Rico - The FBI Murders a Legend

On September 23, 2005, hundreds of separatists gathered in a small town of Puerto Rico called Lares to conmemorate the 137-years old-failed revolutionary attempt against Spaniard colonial rule, known as Grito de Lares. At about 3:00 PM on that day, the crowd was listening to a recorded message from Filiberto Ojeda Rios, leader of the Boricua Popular Army, Los Macheteros (the Machete Wielders). Ojeda's recorded message had already become a staple of the Lares celebration for a number of years, as he could not speak in person to the public.

Filiberto Ojeda Rios has been in the FBI's most wanted list since 1990, when he jumped bail while awaiting prosecution for the 1983 Wells Fargo robbery in Hartford, Connecticut. During the fifteen years Ojeda Rios was a fugitive from the FBI, he had managed to stay active underground as an independentista leader, periodically giving interviews to the press and sending messages of unity to the sadly divided anti-imperialist forces in Puerto Rico. He was considered a Puerto Rican version of Che Guevara. For years, the FBI offered a reward of one million dollars, for information leading to his arrest.