Tupac Shakur's Aunt Is FBI's Most Wanted Woman

Assata Shakur

The aunt of dead rapper Tupac Shakur has been added to the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists after evading justice over the killing of a policeman 40 years ago.

Joanne Chesimard – now living as Assata Shakur in Cuba – was convicted of the 1973 murder of US state trooper Werner Foerster in New Jersey in 1977 but escaped from jail two years later.

Now, on the 40th anniversary of the bloody gun battle that led to his death, the reward for her capture has been doubled to $2 million (£1.2 million).

According to New Jersey police, Chesimard, a member of the violent militant group the Black Liberation Army (BLA), shot Foerster in the head with his own gun after he and his partner had pulled over her car for a broken tail light.

After her jailbreak, she spent several years lying low in safe houses but resurfaced in Cuba in 1984.

"She continues to flaunt her freedom in the face of this horrific crime," New Jersey State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes said at a news conference.

In Cuba, she continues to espouse her anti-US views, and has been heard in speeches advocating "revolution and terrorism". The FBI say she may also have links to other international terrorist organisations.

Chesimard is believed to be one of dozens of US fugitives living in Cuba, many of them one-time members of militant groups. Cuba doesn't haven an extradition agreement with the U.S. because of the chilly relations between the two countries over the last five decades, but the climate appears to be slowly changing. 

Chesimard's brother was the stepfather of the hip-hop icon Tupac, whose career was cut short in September 1996 when he was gunned down in a drive-by in Las Vegas.