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Juan Mari Bras, elder statesman of Puerto Rico's independence movement, dies at 82

Juan Mari Bras, an elder statesman of Puerto Rico's independence movement who gave up U.S. citizenship in an act that inspired hundreds of other activists, died Friday. He was 82.

Mari Bras died at his home in the San Juan suburb of Rio Piedras, said Elaine Mulet Hocking, a spokeswoman for his Hostosiano independence movement. He had lung cancer and had recently taken a fall, she said.

A writer and law professor, Mari Bras was deeply involved in the independence cause from his days as a teenage student activist in the 1940s. He founded the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and was a co-founder of the small but influential Independence Party....

Read entire article at AP