Cuba has rejected calls to extradite exiled Black Panther Assata Shakur back to the United States following the historic resumption of diplomatic ties. Shakur was convicted of killing a state trooper in 1973 after being pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike. The encounter left both the officer and a fellow Black Panther dead. Shakur has said she was shot by police with both arms in the air, and then again from the back. She was sentenced to life in prison but managed to escape and flee to Cuba, where she has lived since 1984. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has called on President Obama to demand Shakur’s extradition. But in a statement, Cuba’s Foreign Ministry said the two countries do not have an extradition treaty and political asylum is not up for negotiation, saying: “Every nation has sovereign and legitimate rights to grant political asylum to people it considers to have been persecuted.”