N.Y. Post: Havana’s Gruesome Guests

capitolhillcubans

From The N.Y. Post's Editorial Board:

Havana’s gruesome guests

The Obama administration — eager to normalize relations with Cuba — is plainly paying lip service to demands that Havana extradite 70-plus American terrorists and murderers whom the Castro regime has granted asylum.

In answer, three New Jersey House Republicans aim to use the power of the purse to exert some much-needed pressure.

Reps. Scott Garrett, Leonard Lance and Tom MacArthur have asked both the GOP chairwoman and the ranking Democrat on a key House Appropriations subcommittee to withhold all funding needed to normalize US-Cuban diplomatic ties.

Their particular concern is Joanne Chesimard, a k a Assata Shakur — the Black Liberation Army terrorist sentenced to life in prison in 1977 for the coldblooded killing of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster. Six years later, she escaped from prison and made her way to Cuba.

She’s far from the only Havana-hosted killer who left a trail of blood in our area. But Cuba insists extraditing Chesimard & Co. is “off the table.”

President Obama is moving ahead anyway.

He has even ordered the State Department to look at taking Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terror — though US law says any nation that serves “as a sanctuary for terrorists or terrorist organizations” belongs there.

One price for full diplomatic ties — including an end to sanctions — must be Cuba’s return of US fugitives to justice. We’re glad New Jersey’s representatives in Congress won’t let the issue be swept under the diplomatic rug.