Former militant independence leader returns to Puerto Rico to finish out prison sentence
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The former leader of a Puerto Rican militant group that has long fought for the island's independence has arrived home to finish serving a prison sentence.
Dozens of supporters greeted Avelino Gonzalez Claudio at the airport Thursday.
Gonzalez was arrested in Puerto Rico in 2008 for involvement in a $7 million robbery of a Wells Fargo armored depot in Connecticut in 1983. It was the biggest cash robbery in U.S. history at the time.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Gonzalez was sentenced in 2010 to seven years in prison.
For nearly two years he has been held at a federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky. Prison spokesman Brian Sparks says Gonzalez was cleared for placement in a residential re-entry center in Puerto Rico to help integrate him back into society.