The US indicts Raúl Castro of Cuba on charges of murder and conspiracy to shoot down the planes in 1996.

Washington – Florida prosecutors on Wednesday filed charges against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro and five others in connection with the deaths of two Cuban military planes 30 years ago, and officials unveiled the charges at a news conference in Miami.

Criminal charges against Castro, 94, the brother of the late Fidel Castro, who is seen as one of Cuba’s leaders. powerful statistics – note the expansion of the Trump administration pressure campaign against the Cuban government. Castro served as president of Cuba from 2008 to 2018 and was the top official of the country’s Communist Party from 2011 to 2021.

CBS News was first reporting that the US was preparing to impeach Castro.

Castro was indicted in Miami on April 23 on one count of conspiracy to kill Americans, four counts of murder and two counts of destroying aircraft. A judge granted prosecutors’ request to withdraw the 20-page indictment on Wednesday.

The charges centered on the Cuban Air Force’s decision to shoot down two passenger planes flown by the Florida-based group Brothers to the Rescue in February 1996, killing four people. The charges say the planes were outside Cuban airspace at the time of the shootout.

The other five defendants reported were identified as Cuban military pilots, including one charged in connection with the shooting more than two decades ago.

“For nearly 30 years, the families of the four murdered Americans have been waiting for justice,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche at a press conference. “My message today is clear: The United States and President Trump do not forget themselves and will not forget their citizens.”

It is not clear whether Castro will ever stand trial, as Cuba does not extradite people to the United States. Former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was indicted on drug charges in 2020. Earlier this year, captured by US forces and flew to New York for the trial, a daring operation that led to the suspension of the interim leader who now works closely with the US.

Asked by reporters how Castro might be brought to the US for trial, Blanche did not provide details, but said “this is not an allegation” and that the Justice Department intends to prosecute the case. He said “there are all kinds of different ways” to bring in foreign defendants.

The lawsuit alleges that Castro – who led Cuba’s military at the time – “met with military leaders and authorized them to use decisive and lethal measures” against Brothers to the Rescue planes in January 1996, following several earlier rounds of the group’s planes dropping leaflets.

“All the orders to kill the Cuban soldiers went through [the armed forces’] command line with [Raúl Castro] and Fidel Castro as the final decision makers,” prosecutors said.

The lawsuit also says that the Cuban intelligence service commissioned a team of spies in Florida to inform about Brothers to the Rescue. Several members of that spy ring have been indicted more than two decades ago, including one man who was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with a 1996 shooting.

The case provides a strong criticism of the Cuban regime.

“The Castro Regime established and maintained control over Cuba and its people through a regime that eliminated tensions, preserved their power, territory and dignity, and, through land confiscation and privatization, funded those goals,” the indictment said.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla condemned the indictment, calling the allegations against Castro “illegal and illegitimate” and repeating Cuba’s long-standing contention that it shot down the Brothers to the Rescue planes in self-defense. He called Brothers to Rescue “terrorists”.

Rodríguez argued with X that the US is trying to justify “the intense violence against the Cuban people.”

The planes of the Rescue brothers were shot down

The 1996 incident involved a Cuban MiG-29 fighter jet that shot down two Cessnas used by Brothers to the Rescue, which was searching for Cubans who wanted to flee the island nation on rafts. Three American citizens and one green card holder on the planes died.

The United Nations, the International Civil Aviation Organization, found that the planes were flying outside Cuban airspace when they were shot down, which Cuba denies. The organization also said that the Cuban authorities did not make any efforts to deal with the planes by other means, including communicating with them by radio or removing them from the area.

The shooting was met with outrage. The Organization of American States says Cuba has violated international law, and then-President Bill Clinton condemned it in “strong terms.” Congress responded by tightening US sanctions on Cuba.

The Cuban government has denied wrongdoing, insisting that the planes were shot down inside a Cuban airliner. Cuba has accused members of Brothers to the Rescue of repeatedly violating Cuban airspace to drop leaflets, saying the group planned to destroy Cuban infrastructure.

On Tuesday night, Cuba’s top diplomat Lianys Torres Rivera posted on social media a link to declassified FAA records from 1996 in which US officials saw “a worst-case scenario that one of these days the Cubans are going to shoot down one of these planes and the FAA better have all its ducks in a row.”

At the time of the shooting, Raúl Castro was the country’s defense minister, and the lawsuit alleges that he authorized force against Brothers to the Rescue. In a 1996 interview with CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, then-Cuba President Fidel Castro admitted that he issued “routine orders” to stop planes from entering the country.

Besides Castro, the case charges one of the pilots who allegedly shot down the two planes, Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez, with conspiracy, murder and destroying the planes. Perez-Perez was indicted for the incident in 2003, along with his fellow MiG-29 pilot and the late Cuban air force chief. The case was never tried.

Four other pilots were charged with conspiracy in the new charges. They are accused of engaging in “training operations using Cuban military aircraft to detect, track, pursue, and intercept small civilian aircraft off the coast of Cuba” prior to the Brothers to Rescue incident.

The case also describes a major effort by the Cuban government to infiltrate Brothers to the Rescue and gather information about the group’s planes, sending a spy team known as the Wasp Network.

That intelligence effort – known as Operation Scorpion – allegedly involved suspected Cuban double agent Juan Pablo Roque, who defected to the US in the early 1990s but returned to Cuba one day before the shootings. The lawsuit alleges that Roque “falsely told the FBI that [Brothers to the Rescue] I will not fly the weekend of February 24, 1996.” It also says that Cuban intelligence officials told Roque and someone else not to go with Brothers to the Rescue on the weekend of the shooting.

Roque, who died last year, denied being a Cuban spy.

Several members of the intelligence unit were convicted in federal court more than a decade ago, including alleged ringleader Gerardo Hernandez, who was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the shooting. Hernandez returned to Cuba in a prisoner exchange in 2014.

What’s next for Cuba-US relations?

Now, with the indictment of Raúl Castro, prosecutors are charging the man who has held the highest positions in Cuba since his brother Fidel overthrew the US-backed leader in 1959. Raúl succeeded his brother as head of the Communist Party of Cuba in 2011. He stepped down as the leader of the group ten years later – but he is still known as his grandson, but he is still known as “his grandson” an important point of contact with US officials.

The case comes after months of tensions between the United States and Cuba. The Trump administration has threatened higher tariffs against any country that exports oil to Cuba, leading to widespread power outages and the failure of the island’s power grids.

At the time, the US attorney in Miami launched the program earlier this year looking to prosecute Cuban leaders, including economic, drug, immigration and violence crimes.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Cuba needs to make drastic economic and political changes, and suggested the current Cuban regime – which he says is led by “jobless, old men” – needs to change. Hours after Maduro’s capture, Rubio expressed Cuba’s confidence in Venezuela and told reporters: “If I lived in Havana and was still in government, I would be worried, at least a little.”

In a video message posted online Wednesday morning, Rubio appealed to the Cuban people choosing a “new way.” Meanwhile, Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos F. de Cossio wrote on social media Wednesday that Rubio is “lying” about Cuba because he “knows very well that there is no reason for such a brutal and cruel attack.”

President Trump he did not make a decision military action, saying at various points that he is interested in a “friendly takeover” of Cuba and that the country could be “next” after the US war with Iran. Mr. Trump also suggested that he is open to negotiations.

“Cuba is asking for help, let’s talk!!!” wrote on the Truth Social blog last week.

Despite the differences, US officials have visited Havana for talks at least twice this year, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe meeting the grandson of Raúl Castro last week. Managers and is offered separately Cuba $ 100 million in humanitarian aid.

The CIA official said Ratcliffe told Cuban leaders that the Trump administration offered a “real opportunity for cooperation” and a chance to stabilize Cuba’s struggling economy. But Ratcliffe warned, the official added, that the opportunity would not remain open forever and the administration would enforce “red lines” if necessary.