Oscar Lopez Rivera was welcomed in Holyoke as a hero with a neighborhood celebration and other planned events for the man who recently was released after over 35 years in prison and who elsewhere is villified.

Lopez Rivera, 73, had served over 35 years of an over 70-year sentence after having been sent to prison for “seditious conspiracy” related to his participation in a Puerto Rican nationalist group. He was held at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Lopez Rivera was sentenced to prison for transportation of firearms with the intent to commit violent crimes, and transportation of explosives with intent to kill and injure people and to destroy government property. He was never charged with carrying out acts of violence, The New York Times reported on May 17.

Video by Paki Wieland