By The Star Staff
Daniel López Romo, a former U.S. district attorney for Puerto Rico who charged 10 police officers involved in the killings of two pro-independence supporters at Cerro Maravilla and who virtually disbanded the militant pro-independence group Los Macheteros during the 1980s, has died. He was 79 years old.
Daniel López Romo, who died Friday, was appointed by then-President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s as federal prosecutor. He was reappointed by former presidents George Bush and George W. Bush. He left the position in 1993 and worked in private practice. He was also a former National Guard brigadier general.
In February 1984, López Romo announced the 44-count, 70-page indictment against 10 police officers involved in the killings of pro-independence activists Arnaldo Dario Rosado and Carlos Soto Arriví. The two young men were killed after they had surrendered to police. The charges were for conspiracy to lie to a grand jury that investigated them, for intimidating witnesses and for destroying evidence.
López Romo’s office was also involved in the arrest of 15 members of the Los Macheteros group on Aug. 31, 1985, which had arisen from the 1983 robbery of a Wells Fargo truck in West Hartford, Connecticut. The robbery, codenamed “Águila Blanca,” was the largest cash robbery in U.S. history at the time, with over $7 million stolen. The group was headed by Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, who evaded capture.
Ojeda Ríos died on Sept. 23, 2005, during a shootout with federal agents.
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