Christie demands return of Joanne Chesimard

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FILE photo from 2005 of wanted poster distributed by NJ State Police for the capture of convicted killer Joanna Chesimard. (AP)

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Gov. Chris Christie is urging President Barack Obama to demand that Cuba return a woman convicted of killing a state trooper to the United States.

In an op-ed published Wednesday in The Record newspaper the Republican governor wrote that the president's recent trip to Cuba comes at the price of justice for the slain trooper.

Joanne Chesimard was convicted in 1977 in the death of Trooper Werner Foerster during a gunfight after being stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. She was sentenced to life in prison but escaped and traveled to Cuba, where Fidel Castro granted her asylum and she has been living under the name Assata Shakur.

Obama just ended a trip to Cuba, the first by a sitting president in 88 years, as part an effort to restore normal relations.