FBI Killing of (Puerto Rican) Nationalist Draws Ire [View All]

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FBI Killing of Nationalist Draws Ire

Thursday September 29, 2005 12:46 AM

By STEVENSON JACOBS

Associated Press Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The killing of a fugitive Puerto Rican nationalist in a shootout with the FBI has sparked ``rancor and rage'' and prompted an increase in security at police stations and federal buildings, the island's police chief said Wednesday.

It's too early to know if the slaying of Filiberto Ojeda Rios will spark a resurgence of pro-independence violence seen in the U.S. territory between the 1970s and 1990s, but officials said they're taking no chances.

``You always take precautions when there are threats, but until now we haven't received any specific information about planned acts of violence,'' Puerto Rico police chief Pedro Toledo said.

Thousands of mourners, many waving Puerto Rican flags and singing revolutionary ballads, turned out Tuesday for Ojeda Rios' funeral, four days after he was shot to death by FBI agents who came to arrest him at his farmhouse in southwestern Puerto Rico for the 1983 armed robbery of a Wells Fargo depot in Connecticut.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5309233,00.html