Jorge Farinacci, 56; Puerto Rican Militant Jailed in Robbery

Jorge Farinacci, 56, a former leader of a Puerto Rican pro-independence militant group who served three years in a U.S. prison in the 1983 robbery of an armored truck depot in Connecticut, died Saturday in San Juan, Puerto Rico, of a brain tumor, his doctor said.

Farinacci, who became a prominent labor lawyer after returning to the Caribbean island, had been hospitalized since July 16 to receive chemotherapy for lymphatic cancer and died of the fast-moving brain tumor, said his doctor, Fernando Cabanillas.

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, Conn. Farinacci served three years in prison in the early 1990s.