Jorge Farinacci, 56; led militant Puerto Rican group

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Jorge Farinacci, a former leader of a Puerto Rican pro-independence militant group who served three years in a US prison for the 1983 robbery of an armored truck depot in Connecticut, died Aug. 26 of a brain tumor. He was 56.

Mr. Farinacci, who became a prominent labor lawyer after returning to the Caribbean island, had been hospitalized since July 16. The Puerto Rican Socialist Front, a coalition of leftist and pro-independence groups led by Mr. Farinacci, said he had served in the ``defense of Puerto Rican and Dominican workers" and praised him for supporting the Cuban revolution.

Mr. Farinacci had been in charge of the political arm of the Macheteros, a militant group also known as the People's Boricua Army that claimed responsibility for bombings and attacks in the 1970s and 1980s aimed at gaining independence for Puerto Rico from the United States.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and illegal transportation of stolen money in the 1983 robbery of $7.1 million from a Wells Fargo bank depot in West Hartford. Mr. Farinacci served three years in prison.