New Jersey’s Supreme Court has put the brakes on the parole bid of a man convicted in the 1973 murder of a state trooper.

The justices on Thursday granted the state attorney general’s request that Sundiata Acoli not be paroled until the court decides whether to hear arguments in his case.

Acoli, then known as Clark Edward Squire, was convicted with current fugitive Joanne Chesimard in the murder of trooper Werner Foerster during a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Chesimard was found guilty but escaped from prison and eventually fled to Cuba, where she was granted asylum by Fidel Castro. She is now living as Assata Shakur and is the first woman placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List.

Last fall, an appeals court reversed a parole board panel’s decision and ordered Acoli released. The attorney general’s office says the court should have sent Acoli’s case to the full parole board for a rehearing. Acoli remains incarcerated.

According to court documents, Acoli’s gun went off during a struggle with Foerster, who had responded as backup after another officer pulled over the car for a broken taillight. The state contended Chesimard shot Trooper James Harper, wounding him, then took Foerster’s gun and shot him twice in the head as he lay on the ground.

Renewed relations with Cuba brought hope that New Jersey cop-killer JoAnne Chesimard might finally be extradited to the U.S. to finish serving her prison term.

The Queens-born Chesimard, now a 67-year-old fugitive granted political asylum by Fidel Castro, was a member of the Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army who went on a spree of city robberies and attacks on cops when she pulled the trigger and killed a New Jersey state trooper on May 2, 1973.

“We view any changes in relations with Cuba as an opportunity to bring her back to the United States to finish her sentence for the murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973,” State Police Col. Rick Fuentes said in a statement. “We stand by the reward money and hope that the total of $2 million will prompt fresh information in the light of this altered international relationship.”

Foerster, 34, was shot twice in the head with his own sidearm after the car Chesimard and two others were in was pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike. Chesimard was captured, tried and slapped with a life sentence, but escaped in 1979 and fled to the communist island nation.

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