SANTA FE, N.M.—An activist attorney from Colorado has settled a federal lawsuit that alleged he was illegally detained at traffic stops in New Mexico, Colorado and Illinois because his name appeared on an FBI terrorist-watch list.
U.S. District Judge John Conway dismissed the case Tuesday. The lawsuit, filed in July 2006, was settled earlier this year.
Francisco “Kiko” Martinez, 60, of Alamosa, Colo., and his attorney, Daniel Yohalem, refused to discuss the settlement.
“At this point, I’m not authorized to say anything to anybody,” Yohalem said.
Martinez said that in incidents in 2000, 2004 and 2005, police held him without any probable cause or reasonable suspicion that he had committed a crime or was a terrorist.
He alleged his constitutional rights were violated and that he was improperly added to a terrorist watch list because of crimes for which he was charged in 1973 but for which he was cleared in the 1980s.
Martinez, an activist in the Chicano movement, was accused of mailing three package bombs in Denver—to a police officer, a school board member and a motorcycle shop. None exploded. Martinez—who spent seven years as a fugitive in Mexico before trials cleared him—denied the charges.
Yohalem said last year that Martinez didn’t meet the criteria for the watch list and was placed there because of his political beliefs.
An FBI spokesman said at the time that the agency does not confirm names on the list or explain how they got there.
Martinez, who described himself in his lawsuit as a “longtime and vocal public advocate for the rights of Hispanic peoples and others,” alleged the FBI placed him on the list in retaliation for his political beliefs or associations.
His lawsuit sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Defendants included FBI Director Robert Mueller and former state police Chief Carlos Maldonado, FBI employees, a state police officer and a former Pojoaque Pueblo police officer.
Spokesmen for the FBI and the state Department of Public Safety, which oversees the state police, declined to comment on the lawsuit when it was filed. State General Services Department spokesman Alex Cuellar said Tuesday the settlement would become public Aug. 1.
Martinez’s lawsuit alleged he was held after stops on speeding violations:
—In April 2005, he was handcuffed, put in a police car and held for an hour while police conferred with the FBI after he was pulled over near Pojoaque.
—He was stopped in Illinois in December 2004 as he, his wife and teenage son were returning from a cross-country running event in the Chicago area. He alleged they were held for four hours and released after FBI agents arrived.
—He was stopped in July 2000 in Pueblo, Colo., and held for more than two hours.
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Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican,
