Chesimard was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1977 for the murder of agent Werner Ferster in New Jersey
Miami.- The Cuban regime confirmed This Friday the death in Havana of Joanne Chesimardbetter known as Assata Shakur, former militant from the black panthers and the black liberation army, who had been sentenced in the United States for the murder of a policeman in 1973 and lived as a refugee on the island since the mid -eighties. According to a brief note of the Cuban Foreign Ministry, Shakur died at age 77 “as a consequence of health conditions and his advanced age.”
Chesimard was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1977 for the murder of agent Werner Ferster in New Jersey. The militant escaped in 1979 of a maximum security prison and five years later reappeared in Cuba, where he received political asylum. Since 2013 it was on the list of the most wanted terrorists of the FBI – the first woman included – and on her head weighed a reward of two million dollars.
The bureau described it in his archives as an armed and dangerous fugitive, accused of opening fire with two accomplices against agents of the New Jersey State Police during a transit arrest; In that confrontation one of the police died and another was injured.
According to official documents of the US Government, Chesimard was also involved in numerous assaults and robberies during his leadership in the black liberation army, including robberies in Queens, Brooklyn and Bronx, hand -grenades attacks against agents of the New York Police Department (NYPD) and an armed robbery in the church of the Church of Our Lady Brownsville
The news of his death caused immediate reactions in American politics. Cuban American congresswoman María Elvira Salazar wrote in his X account that “for decades, the Cuban dictatorship has been a den of criminals and terrorists. The death of Assata Shakur demonstrates, once again, how the regime protects the enemies of the United States and makes fun of justice. As long as that dictatorship exists, it will continue to be a sanctuary for the worst enemies of our nation.”
On repeated occasions, the United States government had accused Havana to give refuge to fugitives and terrorists, demanding the extradition of Chesimard, something that never happened. According to official estimates, Cuba would have received about 70 criminals who escaped from the United States.
President Donald Trump himself had urged the Cuban regime to return to Chesimard and the others.
“They return to American justice fugitives, including the return of police murderer Joanne Chesimard,” he said in 2017.
The State Department of USA He reiterated in May of this year the lawsuit to the Cuban regime of extraditation Joanne Chesimard, included in the list of terrorists most sought after by the FBI after killing a state agent in New Jersey in 1973.
“Today, 52 years after his brutal murder, we remember the State Police agent of New Jersey Werner Footerster,” he published in his X account the Western Hemisphere’s Office.
