Havana, 27 September (H.S.): Assata Shakur, the Black Liberation Army figure who lived in exile in Cuba for more than 40 years after escaping a U.S. prison, has died at the age of 78. Cuba’s foreign ministry announced her death on Thursday, citing health complications linked to age.

Born JoAnne Deborah Byron in New York City in 1947, Shakur rose to prominence during the 1970s through the Black Panther Party and later the more militant Black Liberation Army. Her activism put her under intense FBI surveillance as the United States intensified crackdowns on Black liberation movements.In 1973, she was wounded and arrested after a highway shootout in New Jersey in which state trooper Werner Foerster and activist Zayd Malik Shakur were killed. Convicted of Foerster’s murder by an all-white jury, she was sentenced to life in prison but maintained that she had not fired the fatal shots and that her trial was unjust.

In 1979, Shakur staged a dramatic escape from a New Jersey women’s prison and surfaced in Cuba five years later, where she was granted asylum by then-president Fidel Castro. She became the first woman to appear on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, with U.S. authorities placing a multimillion-dollar bounty on her capture.

Despite her fugitive status, Shakur became a symbol of resistance and an influential cultural figure. She was the godmother of the late rapper Tupac Shakur and was referenced in songs by artists including Public Enemy and Common.Her decades-long presence in Cuba remained a diplomatic sticking point between Washington and Havana.She is survived by her daughter, Kakuya Shakur, who described her death as an immeasurable personal loss.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar