US charges Cuban ex-leader over 1996 plane attacks

The charges related to Castro’s alleged role in the shooting down of two small planes belonging to the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Castro, now 94, was Cuba’s defense minister at the time. The charges include murder and destruction of an aircraft.

“For nearly 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” acting Miami Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a ceremony honoring the dead. “They were unarmed civilians and were conducting humanitarian missions for the rescue and protection of people fleeing oppression in the Straits of Florida.”

Asked how far US authorities would go to bring Castro to justice in the US, Blanche said: “A warrant has been issued for his arrest. So we expect him to appear here, of his own volition or otherwise.”

The federal government, he said, is constantly suing people outside the U.S. and using a variety of methods to bring them to justice.

A grand jury in Miami returned the indictment in late April before it was unsealed Wednesday, Blanche said. Five other people were also charged, including three Cuban military pilots.

When asked what will happen next to Cuba, President Donald Trump replied: “We’ll see.” He added that the US is ready to provide humanitarian assistance to a “failing nation.”

The charges pose a real threat, observers said, because former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was indicted on drug-related charges before he and his wife were captured by US special forces in the Venezuelan capital in January.

“He’s going to have to keep his head pretty low from now on,” said Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst and specialist on U.S.-Cuba relations at the National Security Archive. “They will have no choice but to take this threat very seriously.”

The Cuban president condemns the charges

While it remains unclear whether Castro will ever set foot in a U.S. courtroom, the murder and conspiracy charges carry the possibility of life in prison or the death penalty if convicted.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the charges and accused the US of lying and manipulating the events of 1996. He called it “a political action without any legal basis” that only aims to “strengthen the case they are making to justify the folly of military aggression against Cuba.”

Díaz-Canel wrote on

He said U.S. officials were warned about the violations at the time, but they continued.

Marlene Alejandre-Triana, whose father, Armando Alejandre Jr., was among those killed, said the indictment was “long overdue.” She said her father only wanted to bring freedom to his Cuban homeland.

Over the years, she spoke to multiple federal investigators about the charges against Castro. She called him “one of the main architects of the crime.”

In Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, Peter Hernandez, whose family owns a fruit and vegetable market, said he would welcome the US sending its military to arrest Castro.

“He’s a criminal,” said Hernandez, whose parents moved from Cuba to South Florida before he was born.

“I think we should do that with all criminals, especially if they are hiding behind a country that has consistently proven to be on the wrong side of our national security efforts and ideology.”

Trump has been threatening military action for months

Trump has threatened military action in Cuba since US forces captured Maduro, the Cuban government’s longtime patron. After ousting the Venezuelan leader, the White House ordered a blockade that choked fuel shipments to Cuba, leading to severe power outages, food shortages and an economic collapse across the island.

Since Maduro’s capture, Trump has intensified talk of regime change in Cuba, after vowing earlier this year to carry out a “friendly takeover” of the country if his leadership did not open its economy to American investment and kick out American adversaries.

Trump’s first administration indicted Maduro on drug trafficking charges and used that to justify removing him from power and bringing him to New York to stand trial.

Foreign Minister Marco Rubio on Wednesday urged the Cuban people to demand a free market economy with new leadership, which he said will chart a new course in relations with the US.

“In the US we are ready to open a new chapter in the relationship between our people,” Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said in a Spanish-language video message. “Currently, the only thing standing between a better future is those who control your country.”

Raúl Castro believed he had power behind the scenes

Castro took over the presidency from his ailing older brother Fidel Castro in 2006 before handing power to a trusted loyalist, Díaz-Canel, in 2018.

While he retired as head of the Cuban Communist Party in 2021, he is widely believed to wield power behind the scenes, underlined by the prominence of his grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who previously met with Rubio in secret.

Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for meetings with Cuban officials, including Castro’s grandson. Two other senior State Department officials met with the grandson in April.

The investigation into Castro dates back to the 1990s

Beginning in 1995, planes belonging to members of Brothers to the Rescue, a group founded by Cuban exiles, buzzed over Havana and dropped leaflets calling on Cubans to rise up against the Castro government.

The Cubans protested to the US government and warned that they would defend their airspace. Federal Aviation Administration officials also opened an investigation and met with the group’s leaders to urge them to ground the flights, according to declassified government data obtained by the George Washington University National Security Archive.

But these calls went unheeded and on February 24, 1996, missiles fired from Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets shot down two unarmed civilian Cessna aircraft a short distance north of Havana, just outside Cuban airspace. All four men on board were killed.

Raúl Castro was previously indicted

Federal prosecutor Guy Lewis uncovered evidence linking senior Cuban military officials to cocaine trafficking by Colombia’s Medellin cartel. After the shooting, the investigation expanded and prosecutors pursued charges against Raúl Castro for leading a massive extortion conspiracy by the Cuban military.

Ultimately, the Clinton administration charged four people, including the MiG pilots involved in the downing of the planes. The shooting prompted the US to strengthen its position against Cuba, even though the Cold War was over and the Castros’ support for the revolution was a fading memory across Latin America.

But Castro himself was spared when the Clinton administration raised concerns about such a high-profile indictment.

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