Cuba President Raul Castro congratulated Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera on his release this week, and invited him to visit the island.
Lopez Rivera spent 35 years as a US political prisoner after claiming partial responsibility for multiple bombings in New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C. in the early 1980s while working with the group FALN.
“The Cuban Party, government and people send our fraternal congratulations,” Castro told Lopez Rivera. “We share the joy of your liberation.” (Impactony)
“The Cuban Party, government and people send our fraternal congratulations,” Castro told Lopez Rivera.
“We share the joy of your liberation.”
Lopez is one of the last Boricua Cold War revolutionaries. He was arrested in 1981 and sentenced to 55 years in prison on charges of seditious conspiracy against the US government, use of force in a robbery, transportation of weapons and explosives with the intention of destroying government property.
In January 2017, the nationalist leader was pardoned by former President Barack Obama, after which he was allowed to return to Puerto Rico to complete the last part of his sentence under house arrest.
His pardon was one of 208 sentence commutations granted by Obama during his eight years as president. Another recent commutation making headlines of late is Chelsea Manning, an army intelligence analyst who was convicted in 2010 of leaking thousands of documents that exposed US military and diplomatic activities around the world.
Source: Cubanet
Article originally appeared on Today Cuba and is republished here with permission.
