Havana (EFE).- Assata Shakur, born Joanne Deborah Byron, a former Black Panther convicted of killing a US police officer in the 1970s and a political refugee in Cuba for four decades, has died at 78, the Cuban government confirmed Friday.
The Foreign Ministry said Shakur died “as a consequence of health problems and her advanced age.”
Born on July 16, 1947, Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, was a central figure in African American liberation movements and a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army.
On May 2, 1973, she was arrested following the shooting death of a state trooper in New Jersey and charged with multiple crimes, including the murder of the officer.
She was convicted in 1977 of the murder of a New Jersey state trooper, after a controversial trial, and sentenced to life in prison.
Two years later she escaped from a maximum-security facility and in 1984 surfaced in Cuba, where Fidel Castro’s government granted her political asylum.
Her case became a long-running source of tension between Washington and Havana.
US administrations repeatedly demanded her extradition, including during the Obama-era rapprochement, but Cuba refused.
In 2005, the FBI placed her on its most-wanted terrorists list and offered a $1 million reward for her capture.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently posted on X about how “the Cuban regime continues to provide safe haven for terrorists and criminals, including fugitives from the United States.”
“We owe the victims and the American people our unwavering commitment to holding the Cuban regime accountable.” He was referring to the Shakur case.
Living quietly in Havana, Shakur avoided the public eye, speaking out only in her 1988 memoir Assata: An Autobiography. EFE
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