AP, 1:25 EST March 31, 2017 -

A bill to force the White House to tell Congress what it is doing to extradite fugitives who have fled the United States, including a member of a revolutionary group who killed a New Jersey state trooper in 1973, cleared its first hurdle Thursday with a 4-1 vote in a House subcommittee.

Rep. Chris Smith said New Jersey critics of renewed diplomatic relations with Cuba have not been able to get President Obama’s administration to say what it is doing to secure the return of Joanne Chesimard, a member of the Black Liberation Army who was convicted of killing Trooper Werner Foerster on the New Jersey Turnpike in East Brunswick in 1973.

Chesimard escaped from prison in 1979, and eventually was granted asylum in Cuba. Now 69, she goes by the name Assata Shakur.

RELATED: Smith bill seeks return of Chesimard

“She remains to this day an honored guest of Cuban government,” said Smith, a Republican from Mercer County who is sponsoring the bill with Rep. Albio Sires, a Democrat from West New York who came to the United States from Cuba as a teen-ager.

The bill would require the administration to prepare annual reports to Congress about how many fugitives are living in other countries, what diplomatic efforts are being made to get their return, how long the efforts are taking and what the barriers are.

Smith said the goal is to gather information so Congress can know what laws could be changed to improve the return of criminals.

EDITORIAL: Chesimard's fate shouldn't be deal-breaker

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., opposed the bill because she was concerned it would “undermine” the growing relationship with Cuba, which includes negotiations about law enforcement cooperation that included possible return of fugitives.

“It could contribute to a lessening of cooperation between our two countries,” Bass said during the hearing of the global human rights subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which Smith chairs.

Asked after the hearing how requiring the administration to provide information would hurt relations, Bass said only that she believed extradition issues with Cuba should be handled through negotiations and then referred further questions to her press staff.

LETTER: U.S. must bring cop-killer to justice

The bill is named in honor of Foerster and Walter Patterson, who was killed in a gas station robbery in Wall Township in 1962. The man convicted of the killing, George Wright, escaped from Bayside State Prision in 1970 and eventually settled in Portugal.

Smith said a Portuguese court rejected efforts to extradite him in 2010, and efforts to reverse the decision stopped in 2012. He described Patterson’s survivors as anguished about the situation.
“There is no closure whatsoever of that terrible, terrible murder,” Smith said. “To know he is living in Portugal free and clear is unconscionable.”

LETTER: U.S. should push Portugal to extradite murderer

Chesimard’s case has long been the focus of attention, especially because the New Jersey State Police have kept pressure on state political leaders to seek her return. But Smith said as many as 70 American fugitives are known to be in Cuba, and there could be more.

Smith said he believed the House would pass the bill before its session ends in January, but he did not know what fate it would have in the Senate. The bill requires the first report from the administration within 270 days of enactment, which likely means the next president, and not Obama, would be required to provide the information.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. 

This article was orginally published by the Associated Press on March 31, 2017 and can be found online at the Asbury Park Press:
http://www.app.com/story/news/local/new-jersey/2017/03/31/fugitive-killers/99873828/