Biography
Raymond Johnson Jr. was a 20-year-old Black nationalist and former Southern University student when he diverted National Airlines Flight 186 to Havana on November 4, 1968. He said he was fleeing racist persecution and fabricated arson accusations in Louisiana. Johnson spent the first four of his eighteen years in Cuba in a Cuban prison. Cuba returned him to the United States on September 11, 1986, and the FBI arrested him at Miami International Airport. He pleaded guilty to kidnapping in exchange for dismissal of the aircraft-piracy count and received 25 years, but the Fifth Circuit vacated that sentence and ordered resentencing because the judge had relied on unsupported allegations. The reviewed sources do not establish his later sentence or release date.
