New Jersey presses for fugitive's return from Cuba

TRENTON, N.J., March 12 (Reuters) - State officials are seeking the intervention of U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to help pressure Cuba into extraditing New Jersey's most wanted fugitive.

State Attorney General Peter Verniero will hand deliver a letter from Gov. Christine Todd Whitman to Reno on Friday, asking that the federal government step up its efforts to secure the return of former Black Panther Joanne Chesimard.

Chesimard won asylum in Cuba after escaping from a state prison in 1979. The most wanted fugitive in New Jersey faces a life sentence for the 1973 murder of a state trooper.

The letter to Reno was prompted by a WNBC-TV interview with Chesimard in which, Whitman said, "she claimed herself to be a victim of the judicial system.

"This is an added affront to law enforcement and our system of justice,'' the Republican governor said in a copy of the letter obtained by Reuters.

Justice Department officials said they had not seen the letter but would look into it.

A spokesman for Whitman's office said New Jersey officials would press the federal government to make Chesimard's return a condition for normalizing relations between Washington and Havana.

Chesimard, now 50, was a leading figure in the Black Panther movement before joining the Black Liberation Army.

Authorities say she became a ruthless "terrorist'' who killed Trooper Werner Foerster and badly wounded fellow officer James Harper in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike on May 2, 1973.

She was convicted in 1977 and sentenced to life. But she broke out of a maximum security cell at a women's jail in Clinton, New Jersey, in 1979 with the help of four men who took a guard hostage and commandeered a prison van.

Chesimard has been living in Cuba for 18 years.

Late last year, New Jersey State Police Superintendent Carl Williams also wrote to the Vatican to ask Pope John Paul II to raise the issue of Chesimard's return with President Fidel Castro during the pontiff's recent visit to Cuba.

State Police Sgt. Al Della Fave declined to comment on the action on Thursday, calling it a personal issue for Williams. REUTERS

17:16 03-12-98

Italy, Cuba sign anti-drugs cooperation accord

HAVANA, March 11 (Reuters) - Cuba and Italy signed an agreement on Wednesday pledging cooperation in the fight against international drug trafficking.

The agreement was signed in Havana by Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Rino Serri at the end of a four-day visit to the communist-ruled Caribbean island.

Serri also signed an accord in which the Italian government pledged about $335,000 to support a health program in Cuba to fight dengue fever and leptospirosis, a disease spread by rodents, which is common in developing countries.

The Italian deputy minister earlier held talks with Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina and was received on Tuesday night by President Fidel Castro.

During his visit, he inaugurated a Cuban-Italian joint venture producing wine in Cuba and attended the opening of a trade fair in Havana involving some 80 Italian companies.

Italy is one of Cuba's leading trade and investment partners in the European Union. REUTERS

21:37 03-11-98