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Anthony Bryant

Released
Full name:Anthony Garnet Bryant
Date of birth:23. 02. 1938
Date of death:1999
Gender:Male
Race:Black
Era:1960s
State:California
Time Imprisoned:
11 Years
Support
Black Liberation Black Panther Party
Anthony Bryant

Biography

Anthony Garnet Bryant was a Black Panther Party member from California who hijacked National Airlines Flight 97 from New York to Havana on March 5, 1969, expecting revolutionary asylum. Instead the Cuban government imprisoned him, and he spent roughly the next eleven years in Castro's prisons before being allowed to return to the United States in 1980. He faced federal air-piracy charges on his return and was treated leniently in light of his years in Cuban custody; he became an outspoken anti-Castro activist and told his story in the memoir Hijack! He died in 1999.

Case

Charges: Air piracy
Arrested: Mar 5, 1969
Sentenced: Mar 27, 1981
Sentence: Five years probation, imposed March 27, 1981 following his return to the United States on October 27, 1980. This was a probation sentence, not five years of actual imprisonment. FAA report PDF p. 81, printed p. 11. Source: FAA Aircraft Hijackings and Other Criminal Acts Against Civil Aviation, updated January 1, 1983, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/91941NCJRS.pdf