FBI Assassinates Filiberto Ojeda Ríos

Incredibly disturbing from the NY Times:

Filiberto Ojeda Ríos was a legendary figure with a violent past, a clandestine existence and the single-minded goal of independence for Puerto Rico. He was still on the run at 72, a fugitive convicted of a $7 million robbery in 1983 and the founder of a militant group that claimed responsibility for a series of bombings in the 1970's and 80's. Though Mr. Ojeda Ríos was a controversial figure on the island, his death in a shootout with F.B.I. agents last week in Hormigueros, P.R., has outraged Puerto Ricans of all political stripes - not just the small fraction who support independence, but also those who embrace the island's status as an American commonwealth and even those who want it to be a state. So many have criticized the timing and circumstances of Mr. Ojeda Ríos's death that Robert S. Mueller III, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, took the somewhat unusual step of requesting an independent review of it. Most distressing, Gov. Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá and other Puerto Rican officials say, is the timing of the shooting, on Sept. 23. That date is well known on the island as the anniversary of an unsuccessful 1868 rebellion against Spanish rule. Even those who condemn the violent past of Mr. Ojeda Rios say that cornering him on the anniversary of the uprising was insensitive and foolish.

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