Assata Shakur 1947-2025

Assata Olugbala Shakur (JoAnne Deborah Byron; July 16, 1947 – September 25, 2025), also known as Joanne Chesimard.  

Assata Shakur died in exile in Havana,

Assata Shakur

Assata Olugbala Shakur (JoAnne Deborah Byron; July 16, 1947 – September 25, 2025), also known as Joanne Chesimard.








View Full List Cuba on 25 September 2025.  Assata Shakur remained on the United States FBI most wanted list until her death. 

Assata Olugbala Shakur, was an American political activist who was a member of the Black Liberation Army. In 1977, she was convicted in the murder of state trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. 

While serving a life sentence for murder in New Jersey's Clinton Correctional Facility for Women.  Shakur escaped in 1979, with assistance from the Black Liberation Army and the May 19 Communist Organization.  In 1984, she was granted political asylum in Cuba, where she had remained despite U.S. government efforts to have her extradited.  Since 2013, she had been on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, as Joanne Deborah Chesimard, and was the first woman ever added to the list.