Assata Shakur, a fugitive Black militant sought by US, dies in Cuba

By PHILIP MARCELO, Associated Press

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 “health conditions and advanced age,” Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Shakur’s daughter, Kakuya Shakur, also confirmed her mother’s death in a Facebook post.

Shakur’s case had long been a thorny issue in the fraught relations between the U.S. and Cuba. American authorities, including President Donald Trump during his first term in office, had demanded her return from the communist nation for decades.

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 “ most wanted terrorists.”

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’s 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 writings from Cuba over the years that she didn’t shoot anyone and had her hands in the air when she was wounded during the gunfire.