Former terror leader Oscar Lopez Rivera has “more integrity” than Mayor Bill de Blasio or Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis said Friday.
The Staten Island assemblywoman hailed news that the FALN founder will decline to be honored at this year’s Puerto Rican Day Parade following a widespread backlash — but slammed the pols for sticking by him in the first place.
“This terrorist has shockingly shown more integrity in doing what is right for the parade than our own city leadership who refuse to denounce him and instead waited until he declined the award,” she said in a joint statement with Joseph Connor, whose dad was killed in a 1975 FALN bombing.
“We and all New Yorkers should never forget the terror FALN inflicted on our city and the lack of leadership exhibited by Mayor de Blasio and Council Speaker Viverito.”
Rivera announced Thursday that he will forgo the June 11 parade’s “National Freedom Hero” award in the face of a widespread boycott.
He will, however, still march.
Many top elected officials have already pulled out of the procession over Rivera’s inclusion, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Sen. Charles Schumer, as have nearly all the major sponsors — including Goya Foods, AT&T, Corona, JetBlue, the Yankees and media outlets Univision and Telemundo.
De Blasio, Mark-Viverito, Comptroller Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Letitia James are all attending, although the mayor said he will be marching separately from Lopez Rivera.
Lopez Rivera’s Puerto Rican nationalist group — the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional or FALN — claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings across the US in the 1970s and 1980s.
One of those was a 1975 bombing that killed four people at lower Manhattan’s landmark Fraunces Tavern — including Connor’s dad, Frank.
Lopez Rivera was convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the government, robbery, and transportation of explosives in 1981.
He was sentenced to 55 years in prison, but only served 35 years before President Barack Obama commuted his sentence in January.