As President Barack Obama makes his historic visit to Cuba in a bid to help establish normalized relations between the two countries, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is once again calling for Assata Shakur to be extradited back to the United States as a condition of the improved relations.
Christie wrote his demands for extradition of Shakur, born Joanne Chesimard, in an op-ed for The Record:
For more than three decades, the Cuban government has given safe harbor and refuge to a domestic terrorist – a cop killer who was duly tried and convicted by a jury of her peers, sentenced to imprisonment, and who fled justice rather than pay for her crimes. Every day that she remains at large from justice has been a travesty to her victims’ families and the memory of Trooper Foerster.
Having drawn attention to these restored relations with no less than a presidential trip but without any mention of the fugitives harbored by Cuba, I urge the president to do what common sense and decency requires – that he demand the return of convicted murderer Joanne Chesimard, who stands remorseless and free after the cold-blooded, execution-style killing of a New Jersey State Trooper and the serious wounding of another.
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