The spin on Fox News so-called "news" stories is always outrageous, admittedly,
but this is even more so.

Aside from parroting the totally distorted police version of what happened the
day that Assata was shot and arrested, the writer repeats the absurd claim of a
New Jersey State Trooper that the US should be honoring the non-existent
extradition treaty between the US and Cuba -- completely ignoring the fact that
it is the US that has consistently refused to extradite known and convicted
terrorists, not only to Cuba but to Venezuela.

How anyone in the US could look at a reporter and say with a straight face that
another country should extradite someone controversially accused/convicted of
killing ONE police officer [and most who read this already know that forensic
evidence presented at the trial showed that Assata, having been shot in the
armpit while her hands were up in the air, could not possibly have shot anyone
after that], when the US offers safe haven to the bombers of a civilian
passenger plane in mid-flight, and scores of other rightwing terrorists, is the
height of cynicism and hypocrisy. But then, that's what Fox News is all about...
klw
================================================
From: Walter Lippmann
To: CubaNews
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 2:08 PM
Subject: FOX NEWS: Cop Killer Joanne Chesimard Remains Out of Reach in Cuba


(While Cuba supporters are marking the day of the Heroic Guerrilla,
the US propaganda apparatus is publishing yet another in its series
of endless diatribes against Assata Shakur. Here is today's version.)
========================================================================

WANTED: Cop Killer Joanne Chesimard Remains Out of Reach in Cuba

Wednesday, October 08, 2008
By Michelle Maskaly

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,434581,00.html

This is a weekly series that profiles America's most wanted criminals.

To a few die-hard militants, Joanne Deborah Chesimard — aka Assata Shakur —
is a courageous victim of a vast government conspiracy, a modern-day Harriet
Tubman fighting for the rights of African-Americans.

But to American law enforcement, the 61-year-old New York City native is a
cowardly, dangerous, cold-blooded cop killer who has been living openly and
defiantly for nearly a quarter of a century in Cuba.

Chesimard, a member of the radical Black Liberation Army, has a prominent place
on the FBI's Most Wanted list for the May 2, 1973, murder of New Jersey State
Trooper Werner Foerster.

But unlike most of the criminals on the FBI's list, authorities know exactly
where she is — a point that has frustrated law enforcement for more than three
decades. [Well, they don't know "exactly" where she is; they believe she is
somewhere in Cuba, but since no one has seen her there in over a year, they
don't even know that for sure. klw]

"Ultimately, Cuba doesn't honor the extradition that has been in place since
1940," said Lt. Kevin Tormey, chief detective on the Chesimard case for the New
Jersey State Police and a member of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in
Newark, N.J. "When Castro's administration came to power, they no longer honored
it."

.

Chesimard, who is the godmother of slain hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur, has been
heralded as a hero among some in the hip-hop community and political activist
groups.

On her Web site, www.assatashakur.org, Chesimard claims she is innocent.

"I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S.
government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a
criminal, nor have I ever been one," she says.

But authorities see things differently, and point to Foerster, the New Jersey
state trooper who went to work on May 2, 1973, and never came home to his wife
and kids. [Nor, of course, did the many Black men NJ and other local and state
police personnel have shot and killed]

Foerster and fellow trooper James Harper [claim they] pulled Chesimard and two
others over for a routine traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike about an hour
south of New York City, unaware that the three were carrying semi-automatic
handguns and fake identification.[Their version]

Chesimard, 26 at the time, was already known by the FBI for her involvement in
the Black Panther movement. She had changed her name to Shakur and was now a
leader of the Black Liberation Army — one of the most violent militant black
organizations of the 1970s [sic. examples of their violence? could they ever
have been as violent as US police and military???]. She was wanted in connection
with a string of felonies, including bank robberies in New York.[[For which she
was never convicted, because she had in fact not been involved in any of them.
She was really "wanted" for effectively fighting against racism.]

[The NJ State Troopers claim] Pulled over by the troopers, Chesimard, who was in
the passenger seat, pulled out her semi-automatic pistol and fired the first
shot. [Forensic evidence proved this to be false. Unfortunately it did not
effect the decision of the racist jury hand-picked by a racist prosecutor] The
passenger in the rear seat, James Coston, then fired multiple shots before he
was killed by a bullet from Harper's gun. As Harper sought cover, Chesimard
stepped out of the car and continuously fired at both him and Foerster, who was
engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Clark Squire, the driver.

Foerster was shot in the abdomen and right arm. According to police accounts,
Chesimard picked up Foerster's gun and put two bullets in his head, execution
style, as he lay along the side of the turnpike. Authorities say her jammed
handgun was found next to Foerster's body.

Chesimard, Coston and Squire fled and abandoned their car five miles down the
road. It didn't take long for police to locate the car and Coston, who was found
dead near the vehicle. A half hour after the shooting, state police arrested
Chesimard. Squire was arrested a mile from the car about 40 hours after the
incident.

Chesimard denied that she shot at anyone and claimed that the militant and
cop-killer labels made her a target. But four years later, she was convicted of
first-degree murder, assault and battery of a police officer, assault with a
dangerous weapon, assault with intent to kill, illegal possession of a weapon
and armed robbery.

Her supporters, however, believed she was framed. She received letters of
support while awaiting trial and even released a radio address to her followers.

In a 1997 documentary about her, Chesimard painted herself has a political
prisoner who was beaten in jail and treated like a slave while in the U.S.,
even[sic] comparing herself to Harriet Tubman, the runaway American slave who
helped deliver dozens from bondage along the Underground Railroad.

On Nov. 2, 1979, Chesimard escaped from prison in New Jersey. Police believe a
group of black and white domestic terrorists [sic] approached Chesimard while at
a maximum security prison in West Virginia, but waited until she was transferred
to a minimum security prison in New Jersey before plotting the escape.

Three members of the group who were visiting Chesimard ordered a corrections
officer at gunpoint to open three gates that eventually led out of the prison.
They escaped in a jail van.

Police say Chesimard was taken to a safehouse in East Orange, N.J., where she
hid for five years. In 1984 she surfaced in Cuba, where she was granted
political asylum.

Over the years, her legend has grown as her supporters continue to proclaim her
innocence. Curious college students travel to Cuba to meet with her, family
members send her goods, and she is paraded about during political events
there.[that last comment is completely untrue. She hasn't even been seen for
over a year, because of the million dollar bounty offered for her capture dead
or alive]. She reportedly has been pursuing a master's degree and living in a
government-paid apartment in Havana. [ancient history]

All the while, U.S. authorities have been trying to bring her back to serve out
her life sentence.

"We've tried everything you can think of," Tormey told FOXNews.com. "It's
frustrating. Our goal isn't to combat that front [the Web sites and reports that
claim she is innocent] as much as having her in a U.S. prison."

Jacuma Kambui, one of her supporters, told FOXNews.com in a telephone interview,
"I describe her as a mother, grandmother, auntie, sister, daughter, a regular
person that became the victim of a wicked system."

Kambui, who refers to Chesimard as Shakur [I doubt that; most certainly he
refers to her as "Assata"], described himself as one of 6,700 members of The
Talking Draw Correctives — an organization of Web sites that try to promote
the will of the African people.

"There are a lot of people convicted of crimes they never committed," Kambui
said. "One of the reasons [I continue to support] Assata is because she resisted
the system and put herself in harm's way."

But the FBI, which has placed a $1 million bounty on Chesimard's head, says she
is a convicted cop killer and remains a threat to others. She is considered to
be armed and dangerous. [There is no way that Assata, in Cuba, is either armed
or dangerous. How could she possibly be a threat to anyone from inside Cuba???
The reason for making that obviously false statement is that it then justifies
any attempt to shoot and kill her.]

And despite what's known about her whereabouts, authorities say they won't stop
working to capture her.

"We will talk to anyone, anytime, anyplace," Tormey said.



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