Oscar López Rivera was offered clemency by Bill Clinton in August of 1999 (in a move that was engineered by then Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder) but refused to show remorse for his involvement in the FALN
Until its dissolution in the early 1980s, the F.A.L.N. would remain one of the most destructive terrorist groups in America. Throughout the rest of the decade numerous bombs were placed — mainly in New York and Chicago — causing millions of dollars in damages and a few injuries. The next fatality did not occur until August 1977, when Charles Steinberg was killed at the Mobil Building on 42nd Street. The F.A.L.N’s last bombing in New York was took place on December 31, 1982, when bombs were exploded at Federal Plaza, One Police Plaza, near Foley Square, and in Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn. Three NYPD officers were badly injured in the blasts.
López Rivera (emphasis added)
has been in federal prison since 1981, after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy and arms trafficking in connection with his leadership of the FALN, the notorious left-wing terrorist group that perpetrated more than 130 attacks on U.S. soil from the mid 1970s through the mid 1980s, killing six and wounding many more. Most members of the FALN, which purported to fight for Puerto Rican independence but maintained deep ties to Fidel Castro’s Cuba, were long ago captured and imprisoned, and many of them have already served their time and been released. But Lopez-Rivera remains unrepentant about his crimes, and he’s hardly been a model prisoner: In one of two failed attempts to escape, he conspired with others inside and outside his prison to kill his way to freedom, attempting to procure grenades, rifles, plastic explosives, bulletproof vests, blasting caps, and armor-piercing bullets. After the FBI thwarted this plan, another 15 years was added to Lopez’s original 55-year sentence
Three days before leaving office, Obama Commutes Sentence of F.A.L.N. Member Oscar Lopez Rivera
Mr. Lopez Rivera was not specifically charged in the Fraunces Tavern bombing but more broadly with, among other things, the interstate transportation of firearms with the intent to commit violent crimes, and transportation of explosives with intent to kill and injure people and to destroy government buildings and property.
The creator of the Broadway Hit Hamilton is jubilant,
Sobbing with gratitude here in London.
OSCAR LOPEZ RIVERA IS COMING HOME.
THANK YOU, @POTUS.
🇵🇷 https://t.co/IEdaEvsVcG— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) January 17, 2017
Y @MMViverito, when you talk to Don Oscar, díle I’ve got a show for him in Chicago. It’ll be my honor to play Hamilton the night he goes.
🇵🇷— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) January 17, 2017
So are NYC mayor Bill DeBlasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (the @MMViverito in the above tweet).
In an earlier interview with El Nuevo Día, Mr. Lopez said: “I want to enjoy Puerto Rico, my family. But I like to work. I have some skills — organizing, helping young people — that I want to share with people.”
Says one of the founders of a group responsible for over 120 bombings throughout the U.S.
UPDATE
Steven Hayward reminds us of Bryan Burrough’s excellent book, Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence,
In his invaluable history of the maniacal leftist terrorism of the 1970s, Bryan Burrough frankly characterizes FALN leader Oscar López Rivera as “the man behind the deadliest bombing campaign of the era.” That’s quite a distinction.
