Former Black Panther William Potts, Jr. was sentenced to 20 years in jail in Miami for hijacking a plane in 1984 and diverting its flight path to Cuba.

U.S. District Judge Michael Moore considered the 13 years that Potts spent imprisoned in Cuba after hijacking a Piedmont Airlines flight en route to Miami from New York on March 27, 1984. The hijacker will be eligible for parole in seven years, AFP News detailed.

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Potts, 57, spent another 16 years raising his family in Cuba before surrendering to the authorities in November. He said he wanted to see his daughters in the U.S. and begged Judge Moore to give him a chance, according to Miami Herald.

In May, the hijacker pleaded guilty to a kidnapping charge, which helped him avoid a 20-year jail sentence for air piracy. The new case carried a maximum sentence of life in prison, but the judge was able to consider Potts' previous incarceration because the kidnapping offense did not carry a minimum-mandatory sentence.

In November of last year, Potts initially pleaded not guilty to his original charge. The U.S. attorney dropped that air piracy charge after he was sentenced for the kidnapping case.

Based on the factual statement filed with Potts' plea agreement, he claimed to have brought explosives on the Piedmont Airlines flight and demanded to divert it to Havana. He gave the flight attendant a note identifying himself as "Lt. Spartacus" to be relayed to the pilots.

The note also warned that if the pilots landed in Miami instead of Havana, Potts would shoot the passengers and blow the plane up with the two explosives he claimed was on board. In addition, he demanded to be given $5 million, the factual statement said.

When he hijacked the Miami-bound flight, he hoped the Communist-led island nation would welcome him as a revolutionary and train him as a guerilla, Potts said in interviews. However, the Castro government ordered his arrest and had him tried and jailed for hijacking.

On Thursday, when Potts begged Moore to give him a chance to see his daughters, he promised to make the judge "proud."

TagsWilliam Potts Jr, U.S. hijacker, Jail sentence