Madrid/The American Joanne Chesimard, born Joanne Deborah Byron and known as Assata Shakur, former member of the Panther Negra and fugitive party of US justice for killing a policeman in 1973, died Thursday in Havana at age 78. He had 40 of them refugee in Cuba.
Of his death on Friday the Foreign Ministry In a brief note, he says that there was “as a consequence of health conditions and their advanced age”, without specifying what diseases suffered. The text is mentioned by its birth name and its nickname as a member of the black liberation army, one of the most violent branches of African -American activism, which it joined in 1970.
A year later, he joined another extremist organization, the Republic of New Africa, which sought to integrate the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana into an independent nation of black majority.
Born in New York in 1947, she became one of the symbols of the “Racial Liberation Movements” of the United States on May 2, 1973 was arrested by the murder of a state police in New Jersey and accused of other crimes. Declared guilty in 1977 and sentenced to life imprisonment, two years later he escaped from the maximum security prison of Hunterdon County, also in New Jersey.
After a few fugitive years, Shakur arrived in Havana in 1984, where Fidel Castro granted him political asylum
After a few fugitive years, Shakur arrived in Havana in 1984, where Fidel Castro granted him political asylum. Although he fled the public focus and never granted interviews, he published his memoirs in 1988, with the title of Assata: an autobiography.
Havana’s systematic refusal to extradite her to her country, despite Washington’s continuous requirements, was one of the reasons for friction between the two countries. Shakur was part of the terrorists most sought after by the FBI since 2005, and the reward for its capture was two million dollars.
Did not even give in the then government of Raúl Castro during the call thaw Diplomat, in 2015, under the presidency of Barack Obama, when Bilateral meetings took place on the subject. At that time, the possibility of exchanging Shakur for Ana Belén Montesthe American intelligence agent then in jail for spying for Cuba, today after serving his sentence.
Assata Shakur was one of the reasons given by the current administration of Donald Trump to re -include the island, last Mayin the list of countries that “do not fully cooperate with the anti -terrorist efforts”, of which it had been excluded by Washington by the previous government, by Joe Biden.
In the statement that reported this re -file, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubiohe specified among the reasons: “There were at least 11 fugitives of American justice in Cuba, including several who faced charges related to terrorism, and the Cuban regime made it clear that he was not willing to negotiate his return to appear before justice in our country.” Among them were Shakur and William “Guillermo” Moralesa Puerto Rican independence sentenced to ten years in prison in 1979 for manufacturing bombs, one of whom killed four people in a tavern in New York.
Morales continues to live in Havana, where he married and had children. As the Secretary of State recalled last January, when he demanded his extradition again, he recalled that when they tried to arrest him in Puebla (Mexico), before his escape to the island, two police officers died.
