PUERTORICAN INDEPENC -NYC CASE

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Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 09:16:20 -0500Subject: Pro-independence Puerto Ricans subpoenaed by NYC grand jury(Newsday)Pro-independence Puerto Ricans subpoenaed by NYC grand juryBy CRISTIAN SALAZARAssociated Press, January 11, 2008The case of three young Puerto Rican activists and artists ordered to appear before a Brooklyn federal grand jury has stirred up protests around the country and provoked outrage among supporters of the movement to grant independence to the U.S. territory. Attorneys for two of the activists _ Christopher Torres and Tania Frontera _ said they had successfully filed motions to postpone their clients' Friday court dates. Supporters said that a third, Julio Pabon Jr., also received a postponement. Demonstrators gathered Friday in front of the Brooklyn courthouse in protest of the subpoenas. Rallies also took place Thursday in Puerto Rico and other U.S. cities. "We don't know why this investigation is taking place," said Ana Lopez, a professor of Caribbean history at Hostos Community College in the Bronx who helped organize the rally in New York. "All we know is that its purpose is to harass and intimidate hard-working Puerto Rican people." Federal grand jury investigations are secret by law. Officials with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of New York said they had no comment. None of the three Puerto Ricans have been charged in any crime. Supporters of the three speculated that the FBI had expanded a probe that began in Puerto Rico that they said was aimed at harassing the legal movement to obtain independence for the U.S. territory. In February 2006, FBI agents searched homes and a business to thwart what the agency at the time said was a "domestic terrorist attack" planned by the violent separatist People's Boricua Army, also known as the Macheteros, or "cane cutters." The group was responsible for bombings and attacks in the 1970s and 1980s and had claimed responsibility for a 1979 attack in which gunmen killed two U.S. sailors. In 2005, the group's leader, Filiberto Ojeda Rios, who was wanted for the 1983 robbery of an armored truck depot in Connecticut, was killed during a shootout with FBI agents when they came to arrest him at a farmhouse on the island. Federal investigators later said the FBI agents were justified in killing Ojeda because he opened fire first. Frontera's attorney, Martin Stolar, said it appears the "government is investigating what remains of the Macheteros" after Ojeda's death. He said his client, a Manhattan graphic designer, has no connection to any organization. "But she's definitely been a lifelong supporter of independence," he said. Frontera was a member of a local group opposed to the military bombing of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques by the U.S. Navy during the 1990s, her supporters said. Her father is also a leading member of the Puerto Rican Independence Party. Stolar said such political activities were "very much aboveground." He questioned the federal government's probe. "We see it as a targeting of aboveground individuals and organizations and associations and conflating that with someone who is involved with the Macheteros," Stolar said. Attorneys for Torres, a social worker and community activist, and Pabon, a Bronx filmmaker and graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., declined to comment. Pabon's father, Julio Pabon Sr., said he was at his sports memorabilia shop in the Bronx a few days before Christmas when agents who identified themselves as members of the FBI/NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force showed up asking for "Julio Pabon." The elder Pabon, a lifelong pro-independence activist, instinctively thought they were looking for him. "We want the younger one," he said the agents told him, adding that they only wanted to talk to his son. The elder Pabon was astonished, he said. "I have been an activist all my life," he said. "My son is not involved." But he said his 27-year-old son was definitely pro-independence like his parents and, while at the university, had organized a group of fellow students from Wesleyan to travel to the U.S. naval base in Groton, Conn., to protest the bombing of Vieques. Pabon said he and his son knew the other two who had been subpoenaed as well. Pabon said his son agreed to be questioned by the agents, who showed him photographs of Latinos and asked him if he recognized any of the people in them before handing him the subpoena with the date of Jan. 11. Pabon said the agents told his son there was "nothing to be concerned about." Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917 but they cannot vote for president and have no voting representation in Congress. The island was seized by the U.S. at the end of the Spanish-American War. http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--puertoricanactivi0111jan11,0,5538562.story Posponen comparecencias de independentistas boricuasLOCALES - 01/12/2008María Vega/EDLP
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Nueva York — En sus visitas a independentistas en Nueva York, agentes del FBI han estado mostrando “como veinte” fotografías de activistas, aparentemente de toma reciente, dijeron ayer líderes del movimiento que protestaron frente a la corte federal en Brooklyn.
Los tres activistas que tienen citación para testificar ante un gran jurado fueron tomados por sorpresa, y sus familiares también. Algunos no se dieron cuenta hasta demasiado tarde de que estaban hablando con investigadores federales, según varios entrevistados. Se informó que en uno de los casos, los agentes recibieron la bienvenida en el negocio de la mamá de uno de los citados, porque la mamá creyó que eran clientes. John Rojas, tío del trabajador social Christopher Torres, otro de los que ha recibido citación, dijo que los investigadores dejaron una tarjeta debajo de la puerta de su casa y que más tarde recibió una llamada preguntando si había recibido la citación para testificar. “Ellos pensaron que yo era Chris”, dijo Rojas, agregando que la llamada le causó preocupación y le hizo preguntarse de qué tan cerca lo estaban siguiendo.
Durante la protesta se anunció que las citaciones del gran jurado han sido aplazadas hasta febrero. El abogado de Tania Frontera, la joven cineasta que también ha sido llamada a testificar, dijo que presentará una moción para que se desestime la citación, considerando el llamado como una violación a los derechos de libre asociación y expresión de su cliente.
En cuanto a la razón por la cual su cliente ha sido citada ante el gran jurado, el abogado, Martin Stolar, dijo “no lo entiendo, pero ha habido hostigamiento a la comunidad independentista en San Juan, en Nueva York y en Chicago” desde la muerte del líder de los Macheteros, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos. Stolar dijo que si su moción no tiene éxito, “probablemente ante el gran jurado ella [Frontera] afirmará su derecho a no testificar” amparándose en la Constitución. Esa, dijeron los participantes en la protesta, es la ruta que ha llevado a cárcel federal a independentistas bajo sentencia de desacato desde los años ‘30.
Han pasado casi dos décadas desde las últimas citaciones a independentistas para testificar ante un gran jurado en NY. Ahora “se están acercando a los hijos de activistas veteranos”, dijo uno de los líderes, Frank Velgara.
Maria.vega@eldiariony.com