CubaU.S. expects improving relations with Cuba to facilitate return of fugitives

The United States placed Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terror in 1982, after the State Department determined Cuban leader Fidel Castro was arming and supporting rebels in American allied countries, and also providing a safe haven for U.S. fugitives. Being placed on the list, which includes Sudan, Syria, and Iran allows the United States to impose sanctions, including bans on most imports and exports, economic aid, and other activities.

Business Insider reports that a 2013 State Department report found no support for earlier claims that Cuba armed separatists in Colombia and Spain, but reaffirmed the country’s role in providing refuge to criminals who have fled U.S. courts. Cuba had stated in the past that it would not return to the United States anyone granted asylum. Those who have received asylum include JoAnne Chesimard, a member of the Black Liberation Army granted asylum when she fled the United States after she broke out of the jail, where she was sent for the 1973 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper, and Victor Manuel Gerena, who stole $7 million from a Hartford Wells Fargo facility in 1983 — at the time, the largest cash robbery in American history — and who fled with the cash to Cuba, according to the Hartford Courant.

Others who have been granted asylum in Cuba include Nehanda Abiodun, who the FBI says helped Chesimard’s escape to Cuba, and who was granted asylum in 1990, Puerto Rican nationalist William Morales, who was sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison for a 1975 bomb blast which killed four people but fled to Cuba, via Mexico, after escaping a New York prison in 1979; and Assata Shakur, a member of the Black Liberation Army, a group which made a name for itself for its attacks on police officers. The group dissolved in the 1980s, but Shakur features on the FBI’s list of 10 most wanted terrorists. Shakur fled to Cuba after escaping jail in 1979. She was in jail after being convicted of the murder of a police officer.

Other wanted fugitives, including Black Panther Party members and a few who were convicted of fraud, have died in Cuba over the years.

President Barack Obama’s decision to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terror (which will become official forty-five days after Obama’s message was sent to Congress, if Congress does not block it) may bring hope to law enforcement cooperation between the two nations.

State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said Cuba has agreed to discuss fugitives. “We see the reestablishment of diplomatic relations and the reopening of an embassy in Havana as the means by which we’ll be able, more effectively, to press the Cuban government on law enforcement issues such as fugitives. And Cuba has agreed to enter into a law enforcement dialogue with the United States that will work to resolve these cases,” Rathke said.

Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s top diplomat for U.S. affairs, has publicly rejected any plans for the return of political refugees, but the recent dialogue between the two nations may improve cooperation on more routine crimes.

On its end, Cuba is seeking the return of Luis Posada Carriles, a suspected terrorist who has been living in Florida despite Cuba and Venezuela accusing him of carrying out the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner which killed seventy-three people.

Removing Cuba from the terror sponsors’ list is only one part of a larger effort to normalize relations between the two nations. The Cuban embargo is still in place, but Obama has signaled that it, too, should eventually be removed.

“I think there’s a real opportunity here, and we are going to continue to make — move forward on it,” Obama said. “Our hope is to be in a position where we can open an embassy there — that we can start having more regular contacts and consultations around a whole host of issues, some of which we have interests in common.”