Castro Defends Fugitive Sought by U.S.

HAVANA -- President Fidel Castro has rejected calls to hand over a black militant convicted in 1973 of killing a New Jersey state trooper, saying she's a victim of racial persecution and not a terrorist, as U.S. officials declared recently.

"They wanted to portray her as a terrorist, something that was an injustice, a brutality, an infamous lie," Castro said in a television address Tuesday night.

While Castro did not identify the woman by name, he was clearly alluding to Assata Shakur — the former Joanne Chesimard — who was put on a U.S. government terrorist watch list May 2. On the same day, New Jersey officials announced a $1 million reward for her capture.

A member of the Black Liberation Army, Shakur, 57, was convicted of killing New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster as he lay on the ground. She escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba.

Castro referred to her as a victim of "the fierce repression against the black movement in the United States" and said she had been "a true political prisoner."

"They have always been hunting her, searching for her because of the fact that there was an accident in which a policeman died," Castro said, reflecting Shakur's assertion that she did not shoot the officer.

Castro said an appeal for her expulsion had been raised with him several years ago by a woman who was both "a friend of Cuba" and a friend of former President Clinton.

AUGUST 1999 late : (ITALIAN DIPLOMAT'S DAUGHTER, SILVIA BARALDINI, IS SENT TO SERVE HER REMAINING SENTENCE IN ITALY - WAS THE CLINTON ADMIN TRYING TO PLACATE THE ITALIAN LEFTWING GOVERNMENT? - see FALN, also the BLA) "...Maybe the White House is telling the truth, after all. Maybe President Clinton's clemency offer to 16 FALN terrorists really wasn't motivated by his wife's Senate campaign. The evidence: The Clinton administration is acting as though it believes that violent terrorists just don't belong in U.S. prisons. Two weeks ago, to scant public notice, the Justice Department opened the prison gates to violent radical Silvia Baraldini. An Italian diplomat's daughter, she was sentenced to 40 years in prison in connection with several robberies carried out by black militants - including the 1981 Brink's armored-care holdup in Nyack, in which two cops and a security guard were murdered. Baraldini also has been linked to the jail break in which Joanne Chesimard - now living in Cuba - fled a New Jersey prison. And she was sentenced to an additional three years in a separate case for criminal contempt after she refused to testify before a grand jury investigating the FALN. Over the past decade, the Justice Department - citing the violent nature of her crimes - had rejected five requests by the Italian government to let Baraldini serve the remainder of her sentence in a Rome prison. This year, however, the request was granted. Why? Because the Clinton administration felt it needed to make a conciliatory gesture in order to placate Italy's left-wing government, which was angered by the bizarre acquittal last spring of U.S. Marine pilot Richard Ashby, whose low-flying plane sliced a gondola cable in the Alps, killing 20 people...." -- New York Post 9/8/99 Editorial via ALAMO-GIRL'S DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON ; SECTION: BREACH OF TRUST; SUBSECTION: TERROR; Revised 1/8/01

I don't know since I didn't hear her screeching but it probably is. It's part of a bigger Big Horny Deal the Dems have coming down the pike.

Someone said there are going to be a few Democrats heading off to Cuba this coming week...

Dems only do that when they need marching orders or an underage child, so I hear.

Anyway...

The new line of attack/conspiracy theory they are trying to float revolves around JFK, the CIA, and an alleged hijacking [for which the accused has been acquitted] but which is now of "critical importance" to the left because some sources claim the guy is in the US.

It seems a guy named Kornbluh has a book coming out as part fo this apparently coordinated effort.

All the far-left sites are getting their talking points now, the earliest being NY Transfer, Afroweb, etc (all pro Cuba) and of course ANSWER, etc.

We think the Dems are shrill now. Just wait until they return from Cuba.

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