In an era of greater equality for women, it's natural to celebrate a new first. But the FBI's announcement that it had placed a woman on its list of most-wanted terrorists for the first time was not such a moment.

Joanne Chesimard, who has been on the run in Cuba since 1984, was a black liberation activist who was convicted of killing a New Jersey police officer during a routine traffic stop in 1973.

Also known as Assata Shakur, Chesimard, who is now 65, escaped after two years in prison, spent time in a series of safe houses and then fled to the protective embrace of Fidel Castro's Cuba where she was portrayed as a freedom fighter. She has long denied any direct role in the shooting of the policeman, New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster.

However, that clearly cuts little ice with either the FBI or the New Jersey authorities who have used the 40th anniversary of the murder to put the case firmly back into the spotlight and paint Chesimard as one of the country's most wanted terrorist killers.

"Chesimard is a domestic terrorist who murdered a law enforcement officer execution-style... we want the public to know that we will not rest until this fugitive is brought to justice," said Aaron Ford, a special agent in charge of the FBI division in Newark, New Jersey. "She's a danger to the American government," Ford emphasised.

Indeed the American authorities, in highlighting the old case again, spared little effort in gathering together top law enforcement officials to vow that one day Chesimard would be brought back inside the US justice from which she dramatically escaped.

"This case is just as important today as it was when it happened 40 years ago … Bringing Joanne Chesimard back here to face justice is still a top priority," said Mike Rinaldi, a lieutenant in the New Jersey state police and member of a joint terrorism task force in Newark.

The designation of Chesimard's case as a terrorist affair stems from her role in the Black Liberation Army, a radical and violent organisation of black activists who, along with groups like the Black Panthers, emerged from the racial and political turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. Putting her on the most-wanted terrorist list has also seen the reward for her capture upped to some $2m.

However, there seems little chance that anyone is likely to claim that reward soon – at least not as long as Chesimard remains mostly incognito in Cuba and the current regime on the island nation stays in power. Fidel Castro once hailed her a refugee from an unjust and racist political system and the country has granted her asylum. In a rare interview in 2001 she told the BET television network: "I was convicted by – I don't even want to call it a trial, it was lynching, by an all-white jury."

Indeed Chesimard has become a hero to some activists. Her defenders say there was little proof that she fired the shots that killed Foerster and portray the attention paid to her as part of a law enforcement crackdown on radical groups like the BLA and the Panthers. The popular rapper Common, who has been a guest at the White House, once wrote a song about her called A Song for Assata.

That sort of hero-worship does not wash with the FBI, nor did the violent manner of her breakout from jail in 1979. "Armed domestic terrorists gained entry into the facility, neutralised the guards, broke her free, and turned her over to a nearby getaway team. This is an active investigation and will continue as such until Chesimard is apprehended." Rinaldi said. That sentiment was echoed by Foerster's widow, who now lives in Florida. "I hope that they can get her. She has her freedom, and I don't have my husband," she told the New York Times.