September 19, 1980

JUSTICE DEPTARTMENT REOPENING INQUIRY ON PUERTO RICO SHOOTING DEATHS

(SAN JUAN, P.R.) The civil rights division of the United States Justice Department announced yesterday that it was reopening an investigation into how two young advocates of independence were shot dead by a group of policemen on an isolated mountain more than two years ago.

The case was ordered reopened after one of the police officers in charge of the operation, angered over a transfer, called a news
conference last week to announce that he was going to tell the Federal authorities the truth about what has come to be known as the
''Cerro Maravilla case,'' after one of the peaks on Puerto Rico's highest mountain, Toro Negro.

The officer, Lieut. Julio Andrades, has reportedly told several persons that the young men were shot after they surrendered, dropped
their weapons and stood with hands on head.

The shooting occurred July 25, 1978, the 80th anniversary of the landing of United States troops on Puerto Rico and the anniversary
of the establishment of commonwealth status on Puerto Rico.

Description of Death

After one of the youths, believed to be Carlos Soto Arrivi, 18 years old, lay wounded on the ground, Lieutenant Andrades is reported
to have told several friends, he was shot through the heart. Mr. Soto Arrivii was the son of the novelist Pedro Juan Soto.

The other victim, Arnaldo Dario Rosado, 24, was killed with one blast from a 12-gauge shotgun at a distance estimated at different
times to be from nine to 12 feet.

The two victims were with another young man, Alejandro Gonzalez Malave, who had allegedly gone to the mountain to sabotage a
relay station belonging to a commercial television station. Mr. Gonzalez Malave turned out to be an undercover police agent who had
alerted the police to the plan.

The police had laid a trap for the alleged terrorists but said they opened fire only after the two shot at them first. A Puerto Rico Justice
Department investigation cleared the police, saying that they had fired in self-defense. The investigation, however, was picked apart by critics and by The San Juan Star until the United States Justice Department announced an investigation that was terminated for lack of evidence May 30.

Report of Jury Testimony

Last month The San Juan Star learned that a former policeman who had been on duty at a nearby peak had testified before a Federal
grand jury that he had heard two volleys of shots on the mountain.

The newspaper then found three more persons who also said they had heard two volleys but had never been called to testify before
any investigative body.

The controversy, which smoldered on and off for two years, flared anew and then exploded after Lieutenant Andrades's disclosures.
Lieutenant Andrades had been the commander of the elite special arrests division for four years. When he was transferred out of the
division, he got angry and made his threat.

Steven Clark, an attorney for the civil rights division who carried out the original United States Justice Department investigation, said
he would come to the island soon to question Lieutenant Andrades and the other policemen involved.

A Federal source said the case had been an embarrassment for the civil rights division from the moment it was dropped. ''The
investigators got some clues that something had gone wrong, but it was not enough to continue the investigation. They just came up
against a blank wall.''