Puerto Rican nationalist killed

SAN JUAN -- Officials yesterday urged the US Justice Department to investigate the death of the fugitive founder of a violent independence group who was killed in a gunfight with federal agents.

The FBI said Filiberto Ojeda Rios, 72, opened fire on agents who were trying to arrest him at a farmhouse in the Hormigueros area of western Puerto Rico Friday. Ojeda Rios was killed and an FBI agent was shot in the stomach and severely wounded, the agency said.

Ojeda Rios was the founder and leader of Puerto Rico's radical Boricua Popular Army, which sought independence for the US territory in the Caribbean and was known as the ''Macheteros," or machete-wielders.

The group was blamed for a wave of bombings and killings targeting civilians and military sites in the 1970s and 1980s.

Ojeda Rios and several other members of the group were indicted on charges of robbing a Wells Fargo armored car depot of more than $7 million in West Hartford, Conn., in 1983, in order to finance their activities.

Ojeda Rios jumped bail while awaiting trial. He was convicted in absentia in 1992 and was sentenced to 55 years in prison.

The FBI said it had the farmhouse under surveillance for several days and tried to serve an arrest warrant once the agents' presence was detected.

They said Ojeda Rios shot at the agents several times and they returned fire. His wife, Elma Beatriz Rosado Barbosa, left the house during the encounter and was taken into custody by the FBI. She was later released and will not face any charges, FBI spokeswoman Omayra Melendez said.

Ojeda Rios was found dead inside the home, shot through the neck and shoulder with a single bullet, a day after the gunfight, the FBI said.

''He was wearing a bulletproof vest. He had a weapon next to him when we found the body," Melendez said.

Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila urged the Justice Department to investigate the entire operation.

''The country has to know if this person died during the act, or . . . if he had been given [medical] attention he could have been saved," the governor said.

Politicians across party lines blasted the FBI's handling of the operation and said neither the governor nor local law enforcement officials were told anything for nearly a day. They learned of the shoot-out from news reports.

''It's evident that the purpose from the beginning was to generate a situation which ended with the death of Filiberto Ojeda," said Puerto Rican Independence Party leader Fernando Martin. ''There is no doubt that this country was witness to an ambush."