Assata Shakur Dies in Cuba After Decades in Exile

Assata Shakur, born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, a former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army activist who escaped a U.S. prison in November 1979 and lived in exile in Cuba, has died in Havana, Cuban officials and her daughter said. She was convicted in 1977 of the 1973 killing of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster after a New Jersey Turnpike traffic stop, a conviction she long disputed, saying she was wounded with her hands raised. She resurfaced in Cuba in the mid-1980s after Fidel Castro granted her political asylum; while there she published an autobiography and reportedly worked as a teacher. The FBI added Shakur to its most-wanted/terrorist list, at times offering up to $2 million for information leading to her capture, and U.S. authorities repeatedly sought her extradition, a persistent source of tension with Cuba. Cuban officials said she died of "health conditions and advanced age," and her death closes one of the most high-profile fugitive cases in U.S. history while leaving a contested legacy as a symbol of resistance to supporters and a convicted domestic terrorist to U.S. officials.