FILE 鈥 Joanne Chesimard, a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, leaves Middlesex County courthouse, in New Brunswick, N.J., April 25, 1977.(AP Photo, File)
FILE - Photo of reward poster announcing the federal bounty for the capture of convicted killer Joanne Chesimard is now $1 Million in West Trenton, N.J. on Monday, May 2, 2005. (AP Photo/Tim Larsen, file)
Assata Shakur, a fugitive Black militant sought by the US since 1979, dies in Cuba
Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who was given political asylum in Cuba after her 1979 escape from a U.S. prison where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer, has died, her daughter and the Cuban government said.
FILE 鈥 Joanne Chesimard, a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, leaves Middlesex County courthouse, in New Brunswick, N.J., April 25, 1977.(AP Photo, File)
Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who was given political asylum in Cuba after her 1979 escape from a U.S. prison where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer, has died, her daughter and the Cuban government said.
Shakur, who was born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, died Thursday in the capital city of Havana due to 鈥渉ealth conditions and advanced age,鈥 Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs . Shakur’s daughter, Kakuya Shakur, also confirmed her mother’s death in a Facebook post.
Shakur鈥檚 case had long been a thorny issue in the fraught relations between the U.S. and Cuba. American authorities, including President Donald Trump during , had demanded her return from the communist nation for decades.
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In her telling, and in the minds of her supporters, she was being pursued for crimes she didn’t commit, or which were justified. The FBI put Shakur on its list of 鈥 .鈥
A member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Shakur and two others were involved in a gunfight with New Jersey State Police Troopers following a highway traffic stop on May 2, 1973.
Trooper Werner Foerster was killed and another officer was wounded, while one of Shakur鈥檚 companions was also killed.
Shakur, who was at the time wanted on several felonies, including bank robbery, fled but was eventually apprehended.
She maintained in her that she didn鈥檛 shoot anyone and had her hands in the air when she was wounded during the gunfire.
Shakur was found guilty of murder, armed robbery and other crimes in 1977 and was sentenced to life in prison, only to escape in November 1979.
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Members of the Black Liberation Army, posing as visitors, stormed the Clinton Correctional Facility for women, took two guards hostage and commandeered a prison van to break Shakur out.
She disappeared before eventually emerging in 1984 in Cuba, where Fidel Castro granted her asylum, according to the FBI. A companion who was also convicted in Foerster’s killing, Sundiata Acoli, was in 2022. His attorneys had argued the then-octogenarian had been a model prisoner for nearly three decades and counseled other inmates.
