article_snippet: Cuba, his complained bitterly, has been harboring since 1984 a fugitive who killed a New Jersey police officer in 1977.
article_snippet: You cannot start trading with a country that is promoting someone who is a cop-killer,' a country that is promoting someone who is a cop-killer said of JoAnne Chesimard, the 67-year-old former Black Liberation Army member who escaped from a New Jersey prison in 1979 and has been on the run ever since.
article_snippet: The Cuban government refused this week to extradite Chesimard, who has adopted the name Assata Olugbala Shakur, as part of trade negotiations designed to give Cuba access to U.S. markets after a half-century of political freeze. '
article_snippet: I can say it is off the table,' said Gustavo Machin, the deputy director for American affairs at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during a March 2 interview with Yahoo News.
article_snippet: In December Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s Head Of North American Affairs, rejected a deal that would have returned Chesimard to U.S. in exchange for 5 prisoners held in U.S.Every nation has sovereign and legitimate rights to grant political asylum to people it considers to have been persecuted,' she told the Associated Press at the time. '
article_snippet: We’ve explained to The Cuban government in the past that there are some people living in Cuba to whom Cuba has legitimately granted political asylum.'
article_snippet: Chesimard killed a New Jersey police officer, escaped from a New Jersey prison and fled justice in Cuba, where Chesimard still lives under the Raul Castro government's protection . '