by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News September 26, 2025
FBI’s most wanted terrorist, Joanne Chesimard, aka “Assata Shakur”, has died in Havana after decades on the run, Cuban officials said on Friday. She was 78.
Chesimard, who was convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper, remained at large for over 25 years after breaking out of prison and escaping to Cuba where she was granted asylum by the communist government.
In 1977, Chesimard was convicted of the murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. Foerster left behind a wife and 3-year-old son.
Chesimard was found guilty of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and other crimes and was sentenced to life in prison. She escaped from prison in 1979 and lived underground before surfacing in Cuba in 1984.
She escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey on November 2, 1979, with the help of three armed members of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). The escape involved taking two guards hostage and using a prison van.
The FBI and the New Jersey attorney general each offered a $1 million reward for her capture.
Chesimard was added to the bureau’s Most Wanted Terrorists List in 2013.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had criticized the Cuban regime for its refusal to hand over Chesimard to U.S. authorities.
“The Cuban regime continues to provide a safe haven for terrorists and criminals, including fugitives from the United States,” he said in a statement in May to Fox News.
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