Edwin Cortes

The prosecutors countered: There may be something heroic about someone who dies for his beliefs, but there is nothing heroic about someone who sneaks out into the dead of the night, plants bombs and then slinks back into the sanctuary of a safe house before the bomb detonates. In comments at sentencing of the three, Judge George Layton stated, “One of the strange things about this case is that these defendants didn’t accomplish any of their purpose. The didn’t succeed in springing Oscar Lopez. They didn’t succeed in springing anybody from Pontiac Correctional Center. And they didn’t even succeed in planting the bombs. Why? Because in this case, in this court’s judgement, represents one of the finest examples of preventive law enforcement that has ever come to this court’s attention ...They were going to plant bombs in public buildings during a holiday.”

[see also Edwin Cortez https://web.archive.org/web/20180705093457/https://www.sis.utk.edu/users/edwin-cortez]

The sentences received by Cortes and the other Nationalists were judged to be "out of proportion to the nationalists' offenses." In criticizing President Clinton's decision to release the Puerto Rican prisoners, the conservative U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee also categorized Cortes as a "Puerto Rican Nationalist", echoing a recent Newsweek article. In 2006, the United Nations called for the release of the remaining Puerto Rican political prisoners in United States prisons.

Had President Clinton not offered clemency, Cortes would have been released in 2004.

Edwin Cortes was a Puerto Rican nationalist and member of the FALN who received a sentence of 35 years for seditious conspiracy and other charges. He was sentenced on February 18, 1999, and incarcerated in a U.S. federal prison. However, he was released early from prison, after President Bill Clinton extended a clemency offer to him on February 19, 1999.

Edwin Cortes was released from prison on September 10, 1999, after President Bill Clinton extended him clemency. Clinton cited Rev. Desmond Tutu and former President Jimmy Carter as having been influential on his decision to grant Cortes the clemency offer. Cases involving the release of other Puerto Rican Nationalist prisoners have also been categorized as cases of political prisoners, with some being more vocal than others.

These actions plus information derived from continued surveillance foiled an attempt to free Oscar Lopez Rivera from jail during a trip to a hospital in mid March 1983. In addition, they forestalled similar escape attempts targeted for other FALN prisoners, housed near Bloomington, Illinois.

Using surveillance, investigators documented Edwin Cortes training Alberto Rodriguez on how to build a bomb; evaluate the perimeter of Army Reserve Center and GSA facility at 74th and Pulaski; and plan to place bombs on July 4 of 1983. This prompted the arrest on June 29, 1983 of Cortes, Alberto Rodriguez, and Alejandrina Torres and a fourth sympathizer (Jose Rodriguez).

Cortes and 11 others were arrested on April 4, 1980, in Evanston, Illinois. They had been linked to more than 100 bombings or attempted bombings since 1974 in their attempt to achieve independence for Puerto Rico. At their trial proceedings, some of the arrested declared their status as prisoners of war, and refused to participate in the proceedings.

The arrest in April 1980 of a dozen FALN members in Evanston led to the identification of Edwin Cortes as a suspect. Nicknamed The Rabbit by law enforcement, a large team of local and federal agents placed him under nearly constant surveillance, which was used to identify a FALN safe house, which then was placed under surveillance.

During the trial, Cortes and Torres painted a picture of Puerto Rico as a bleak world where American corporations, particularly drug companies, conducted unethical experiments, such as birth control tests, on Puerto Rican women; where the American government systematically effaced a rich, proud Puerto Rican cultural heritage; and where the powerful, shadowy hand of the Wall Street capitalist dictated the country`s politics and exploited its citizens and natural resources. They and their witnesses asserted that George Washington was a slave holder, that U.S. domination over Puerto Rico was illegal and that the FBI historically targeted the FALN for infiltration, disruption and annihilation. They invoked the names of freedom fighters from Northern Ireland, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua and elsewhere; attacked the legitimacy of the 1898 treaty with Spain ceding Puerto Rico to the U.S.; accused government authorities of enslaving Puerto Rican nationals in a "cocoon of ignorance"; and cited a United Nations resolution that sanctioned war against colonialism.