BY RON RICHARDS
CAROLINA, Puerto Rico - Hundreds of people gathered at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport here February 15 to welcome home independence fighter Antonio Camacho Negrón after 11 years in prison in the United States. Camacho was one of 15 Puerto Rican political prisoners in the United States. He was released from prison February 13 in White Deer, Pennsylvania.

Banners at the welcoming activity called for the release of the remaining political prisoners. A leaflet passed out at the airport protested the fact the Clinton administration has ignored petitions signed by 200,000 people calling for the release of the prisoners.

The crowd ranged from Lolita Lebrón and Rafael Cancel Miranda, who spent 26 years in prison after they fired shots at the U.S. Congress in 1954 in a protest of the colonial status of Puerto Rico, to activists in the Federation of Pro- Independence University Students.

Writing in a recent issue of the pro-independence weekly Claridad, Camacho explained the charges against him. He was among the "Hartford 15" defendants jailed on charges in connection with the theft of $7.5 million from the Wells Fargo armored car company in Hartford, Connecticut. Camacho was not convicted of participating in the robbery, but rather on one count of transporting the stolen money two years later. The Popular Puerto Rican Army-Macheteros assumed responsibility for the theft of the money.

In 1985 and 1986, 15 people were arrested and charged with the robbery and related acts. All of the evidence used against the defendants was illegally obtained, including through wiretapping the homes of 10,000 independentistas, which violates the constitution of Puerto Rico. Before the case went to trial the U.S. government offered reduced sentences to any of the people charged if they would plead guilty. Camacho was offered a suspended sentence, which he rejected.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home