TERROR GROUPIE VIV GOING GAGA!
Snaps freed fiend
The co-founder of the murderous terror group FALN walked free from house arrest in Puerto Rico Wednesday — and was greeted by a beaming New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who snapped pictures and swooned like a starstruck schoolgirl.
Her unabashed support of Oscar López Rivera, who helped form the violent Puerto Rican independence group, enraged law-enforcement members, who will never forget the organization’s reign of terror.
“It’s really sickening,” said former NYPD Detective Anthony “Tony” Senft, 70, who lost an eye while trying to defuse a bomb planted by FALN — or Armed Forces of National Liberation — at the Brooklyn federal courthouse in 1982.
“They’re making him a folk hero, and he’s a terrorist. They’re making this guy like Robin Hood.”
FALN has claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings in the Big Apple and other US cities in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The militant group’s attacks killed six people and wounded at least 130 others.
But that didn’t stop a gleeful Mark-Viverito from showing at López Rivera’s release in San Juan, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the Puerto Rican flag and the word “lib
ertà,” meaning “free.”
“Today. After 35 years. Our beloved Oscar. FREE!” the speaker tweeted Wednesday.
She even joined López Rivera, 74, when he stopped at a federal building to return the electronic tags that monitored him.
The FALN leader, whom supporters insist was a political prisoner, was never tied to any of the bombings, which include the still-unsolved 1975 explosion that killed four people and injured more than 60 at landmarked Fraunces Tavern in the Financial District.
But he was convicted on a slew of charges, including a conspiracy to overthrow the US government, and spent 36 years behind bars before then-President Barack Obama commuted the rest of his 70year prison sentence just before leaving office in January.
López Rivera is slated to be honored at the Big Apple’s Puerto Rican Day Parade on June 11.
Detectives’ Endowment Association President Michael Palladino said Mark-Viverito is celebrating “a terrorist.”
“On behalf of the cops he in- jured and civilians he killed, I condemn the speaker for her words and actions,” he said. “Any politician who embraces evil and terror has no business holding office in this country.”
City Council deputy press secretary Shirley Limongi said López Rivera’s release was a “pivotal moment for Puerto Rico.”
“As New York City’s highest-ranking Puerto Rican elected official, Melissa was proud to . . . to celebrate Oscar’s release,” she said.
Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen and wires