Juan Enrique Segarra-Palmer

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.

For many years, numerous national and international organizations criticized Segarra-Palmer's incarceration categorizing it as political imprisonment. President Bill Clinton extended him conditional clemency, which he accepted, and was released in 2004. 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.

In 1999, Segarra-Palmer was one of the Macheteros members whose sentences were commuted by President Bill Clinton.

Juan Enrique Segarra Palmer is a Puerto Rican activist. Segarra is one of the founders of the clandestine Puerto Rican pro-independence group Los Macheteros. In 1989, he was convicted of seditious conspiracy, and weapons and conspiracy charges, along with interference with interstate commerce, in connection with the Wells Fargo Depot robbery. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison but in 1999, he accepted President Bill Clinton's clemency offer, becoming eligible for release from prison five years.

In 1985 he was arrested for conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government in Puerto Rico and to obtain money from the Wells Fargo company, insured by the United States government, to continue the independence struggle in Puerto Rico. He was serving a 60-year sentence in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Wells Fargo Depot robbery occurred on 12 September 1983, a day coinciding with the birthdate of Puerto Rican Nationalist Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos. The robbery took place in West Hartford, Connecticut and netted over $7 USD million. It was "then the largest cash heist in U.S. history."

Segarra was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico on March 6, 1950. He came from a family with a long history of resistance to both Spanish and U.S. colonialism. During his youth Segarra-Palmer did cultural work in the poor barrios of New York, in the prisons in Boston, and in the anti-mining crusades and the land rescue movement in Puerto Rico. After attending Phillips Academy Andover, he graduated from Harvard University and continued studying in Cuernavaca, Mexico. He is married to ex-political prisoner Lucy Berrios and has five children: Amilcar, Ramon, Wanda, Luriza, and Zulena.