Barack Obama commutes sentence of Puerto Rican independence fighter Oscar López Rivera

The 74-year-old has already served 35 years in prison and was not due to be released until 2023

Campaigners have fought for many years to secure the release of Oscar Lopez Rivera (Getty Images)

Barack Obama has freed one of the world’s longest-serving "political prisoners" as the outgoing US president uses his last days in office to pardon hundreds of inmates.

Oscar López Rivera, a Puerto Rican independence activist who has been in a US prison for more than 35 years, will be released in May – six years earlier than planned.

The prisoner was placed behind bars in 1981 after being found guilty of “seditious conspiracy” and has been classified as a terrorist by the US government.

Mr Obama has issued record numbers of pardons and commutations during his last weeks in office before handing over to Donald Trump on 20 January. On Tuesday, he announced that Chelsea Manning, the US solider who in 2013 was sentenced to 35 years in prison for passing secret documents to WIkileaks, would be released in May.

López Rivera was part of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN) armed group, which advocated violence as a tactic in the struggle for Puerto Rican independence and carried out hundreds of bombings in the US.

Now 74, he has spent more than half his life in prison and was due to remain behind bars until June 2023 - when he would have been 80.

During his last days in office in 1999, then president Bill Clinton offered to shorten López Rivera’s sentence but the prisoner rejected the deal because it did not include two of his fellow activists. In 2011, the US Parole Commission turned down his request for early release.

A number of high-profile figures have campaigned for his release, including Pope Francis, former US president Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of hit musical Hamilton.

López Rivera’s lawyer, Jan Susler, broke the news of the release to him.

"He's very, very grateful," she said. "One of the things he said was: 'Tomorrow's my daughter's birthday. What an amazing present for her."'

“We have a lot of work left to do, and now Oscar will be able to join us, and we can work side by side”, Ms Susler later told The Guardian.

Puerto Rico is classified as a US territory but is not officially a US state.

López Rivera spent his early life on the Caribbean island but moved with his family to Chicago when he was 14. He served in the US army during the Vietnam War before becoming closely involved in the struggle for Puerto Rican independence.

US prosecutors claimed FALN had carried out at least 140 bombings on military bases, government offices and financial buildings, but López Rivera has repeatedly denied he was involved in carrying out fatal attacks.

The group later renounced violence.

Asked about this by the Guardian last year, López Rivera said: “We realised other tactics to armed force could be more effective, mobilising people through peaceful campaigning.

Morally, also, we came to see that we had to lead by example, that if we are advocating for a better world then there are things you cannot do. You cannot get a better world by being unjust yourself.”

Mr Obama has now commuted the sentences of 1,385 prisoners - more than any other US president. More are expected before he vacates the Oval Office on Friday.