Former Black Panther Assata Shakur, Tupac Shakur’s Step-Aunt, Added to FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List
Examiner
For the first time in history, a woman was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List on Thursday. Her celebrity extends beyond that, though, as the woman has a relative of note among music circle: She is Joanne Chesimard, who is also the step-aunt and godmother to the late rapper Tupac Shakur.
Chesimard was a member of the Black Liberation Army when she killed Trooper Werner Foerster in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike on May 2, 1973. In 1977, she was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
However, she escaped two years later from a prison in Clinton, New Jersey. She then lived underground before being located in Cuba in 1984. Her current whereabouts are unclear, but the FBI believes it is a possibility that she may still be living in the island country.
The FBI says she now lives under the name Assata Shakur. The anniversary of the “shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike” was the spurred the FBI to double the reward for her capture on Thursday, to $2 million, according to CBS News’ John Miller, an assistant director at the FBI during Chesimard’s time on the run. The reward was upped when New Jersey added another $1 million.
Miller added, though, that it is unlikely she can be captured in Cuba, which has historically held out the welcome mat for U.S. fugitives. There are currently 70 U.S. fugitives living in Cuba, according to Miller. Chesimard has reportedly been provided with false papers by the Cuban government so that she can travel to Cuba-friendly countries.
Her step-nephew, Tupac Shakur, was shot multiple times on Sept. 13, 1996 in a drive-by shooting at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas. He died six days later.
Despite this, sales continue posthumously, and Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide as of 2010, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. Rolling Stone once named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time.
Original Link: http://www.examiner.com/article/tupac-s-step-aunt-now-the-first-woman-on-the-fbi-s-most-wanted-terrorist-list
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2013-05-03 12:06:36
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