Raul Castro displays a Cuban flag during a Labor Day procession at Revolution Square in Havana on May 1, 2025.Ramon Espinosa/AP
The Department of Justice formally accused former Cuban President Raul Castro of homicide on Wednesday, citing his supposed participation in the destruction of two aircraft transporting humanitarian assistance in 1996, as indicated by a newly revealed court record. The incident led to the passing of four U.S. individuals.
The legal filing indicts Castro on seven charges, encompassing conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens, damage of aircraft, and homicide for each of the four occupants aboard the planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue, an association that carried out rescue efforts for Cuban refugees attempting to leave the country.
It signifies a substantial intensification in the United States’ continuous endeavor to bring about a change in leadership of the island nation’s Communist-controlled administration, although it remains uncertain whether the 94-year-old Castro will ultimately be present in a U.S. court.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announces the release of a superseding charge against Cuba’s former president Raul Castro during a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Brothers to the Rescue killings, in Miami, May 20, 2026.Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images
The accusation was issued by a grand jury on April 23 and made public today, as stated by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche during a news briefing in Miami, Florida.
"For the initial time in nearly seven decades, prominent figures of the Cuban government have been charged in this country, in the United States of America, for violent actions that resulted in the deaths of American nationals," Blanche conveyed. "Nations and their figureheads cannot be authorized to target Americans, kill them, and escape accountability. President Trump is devoted to reinstating a very straightforward yet crucial principle: if you kill Americans … we will pursue you irrespective of who you are, irrespective of what position you hold, and in this instance, irrespective of how much time has elapsed."
He continued, "The U.S. administration has not disregarded these innocent individuals who were shot from the sky."
In a declaration, President Miguel Diaz-Canel criticized the indictment, referring to it as a "political tactic, lacking any judicial basis, intended merely to inflate the fabricated narrative they employ to legitimize the absurdity of military hostility against Cuba."
The Cuban foreign minister stated that the destruction of the planes was in "lawful defense" and that the indictment "relies on falsehoods and obscures appropriately documented historical realities."
Raul Castro waves a Cuban national flag during a May Day parade at Revolution Square in Havana on May 1, 2025.Ramon Espinosa/AP
Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based organization, undertook humanitarian air missions across the Florida Straits to locate Cuban migrants in peril, as per the Justice Department. U.S. officials assert that Cuban intelligence operatives infiltrated the organization during the early 1990s and "transmitted comprehensive information regarding its air activities back to the Cuban authorities." U.S. officials claim that this intelligence was utilized by Cuban military leaders in strategizing the Feb. 24, 1996, undertaking.
The undertaking resulted in the deaths of four individuals: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, with three of them being U.S. citizens.
Sourse: abcnews.go.com