In one of what will undoubtedly be several last minute f***-yous directed at America, Barack Obama has commuted the sentence of a violent and unrepentant terrorist named Oscar López Rivera. López Rivera is a member of the violent, communist terror organization called Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional or FALN. Between 1974 and 1983 the group carried out over 120 bombings in the United States and killed at least 5 people. Lopez Rivera was arrested in 1977 as an accomplice in an unsuccessful bank robbery in Illinois.

At his trial in 1980–81, López Rivera admitted committing every act for which he was charged, but declared himself a political prisoner and refused to take part in most of his trial.^[18] At the time of their arrest, López, Rivera and the others declared themselves to be combatants in an anti-colonial war against the United States to liberate Puerto Rico from U.S. domination and invoked prisoner of war status. They stated that U.S. courts did not have jurisdiction to treat them as criminals, and petitioned for their cases to be handed over to an international court that would determine their status. The U.S. Government, however, did not recognize their request.^[19]

In August 1981, at the trial of López Rivera, Alfredo Méndez, one of the 11 Evanston FALN members who had become an informant, testified that López Rivera taught him how to make bomb detonation devices and gun silencers. He also testified that the first bombing in which Méndez was to have taken part was to have occurred in the hotel where the offices for the Democratic Party were located. Méndez stated that other bombings were scheduled to occur simultaneously in New York City, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. Speaking on his own behalf during closing arguments López Rivera stated, “Puerto Rico will be a free and socialist country” and denounced Méndez as a traitor.^[17] López Rivera was convicted of “seditious conspiracy, use of force to commit robbery, interstate transportation of firearms and ammunition to aid in the commission of a felony, and interstate transportation of stolen vehicles”. The offenses arose out of his role in Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (“FALN”), a Puerto Rican nationalist group whose activities included over 100 bombings in which six (6) people were killed and others maimed”.^[20][21] The charges included armed robbery and for being a recruiter and bomb-making trainer in the FALN.^[17]

The pre-sentencing report stated that López Rivera had been:

personally involved in bombing and incendiary attacks across the country for at least five years prior to Méndez’s [sic] involvement and knowledge, has been a prime recruiter for members of the underground terrorist group, and has been a key trainer in bombing, sabotage and other techniques of guerilla warfare. He has set up a series of safehouses and bomb factories across the country, the searches of which have uncovered literally hundreds of pounds of dynamite and other forms of high explosive, blasting caps, timing devices, huge caches of weapons and stockpiles of ammunition, silencers, sawed-off shotguns, disguises, stolen and altered identity documents, and the proceeds of the armed robberies of locations such as a National Guard Armory, Chicago’s Carter-Mondale Re-Election headquarters, radio and communications companies, as well as a variety of stolen vehicles.^[22]

 
In 1981 he was sentenced to 55 years and in 1988 another 15 was tacked on because of his involvement in a plot to break out of the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, KS.

Back in 1999, Clinton offered López Rivera clemency if he would renounce terrorism. López Rivera refused. And he still hasn’t. Yet now he’s a free man.

This dovetails very neatly into the Bradley Manning commutation. If you crime is in line with Obama’s anti-American politics, he’ll take care of you.