U.S. federal prosecutors have indicted former Cuban President Raul Castro in connection with the 1996 shooting down of a plane operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue.
The indictment, unsealed Wednesday, marks one of the sharpest escalations in tensions between Washington and Havana in years.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that Castro, Cuba’s defense minister at the time, played a leading role in the decision to have Cuban fighter jets shoot down two civilian planes on February 24, 1996.
Castro was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit the murder of an American, four counts of murder, and two counts of destroying an aircraft. The indictment also named five co-defendants.
The 1996 attack killed four people, sparked international condemnation and deepened tensions between the United States and Cuba.
“For nearly 30 years, the families of the four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in announcing the charges at Miami’s Freedom Tower.
“My message today is clear: America and President Trump have not forgotten our people and never will.”
He said the four people killed – Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales – were “unarmed civilians” who were engaged in “a humanitarian mission for the rescue and protection of people fleeing oppression across the Florida Straits.”
“It is unacceptable for a nation and its leaders to target and kill Americans and not hold them accountable,” Blanche added. “If you kill an American, no matter who you are, no matter what title you hold, and in this case no matter how much time has passed, we will come after you.”
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel also called the indictments “a major step toward accountability.”
Brothers to the Rescue began its work in 1991, during a wave of Cuban immigration to the United States. Founded by Cuban exile Jose Basulto, the group aimed to help Cuban refugees cross the Florida Straits by finding rafters at sea and alerting the U.S. Coast Guard.
U.S. officials and international investigators said the plane was attacked over international waters, but Cuba claimed the plane had violated or approached Cuban airspace.
Then-President Fidel Castro later denied that he or Raul Castro had directly ordered the downing of the plane.
After the indictment was revealed, Cuba’s current leader Miguel Diaz-Canel dismissed the charges as an act of political theater.
He also accused US President Donald Trump’s administration of “lying and manipulating” the events of 1996 to justify military action against Cuba.
“This is a political maneuver with no legal basis and its sole purpose is to inflate the documents it is fabricating to justify the folly of its military invasion of Cuba,” Diaz-Canel said on social media.
Castro indictment increases pressure on Havana
Orlando Perez, a political science professor at the University of North Texas at Dallas, told Al Jazeera that the timing of the charges appears to be related to a broader U.S. pressure campaign on Havana.
“I think it’s important to look at the recent series of events,” Perez said.
He noted that US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe visited Havana last week.
The meeting was part of ongoing negotiations between Cuba’s communist government and the administration of US President Donald Trump, which is pushing for a change in Cuba’s leadership.
There were also reports this month that Cuba was exploring drone and asymmetric warfare capabilities as President Trump ramped up pressure on the island.
Havana was reportedly considering possible drone strikes targeting the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. warships and nearby Florida’s Key West Island, about 140 kilometers (90 miles) off the Cuban coast.
“Washington appears to be pursuing two tracks simultaneously: back channels with the Castro family network and public pressure campaigns,” Perez said. “The indictment of Raul Castro fits that structure.”
Pérez added that the move to indict Castro could backfire and instead of weakening Cuba’s communist base, it could instead galvanize support.
“The indictment of Raul Castro will strengthen the hardliners and hand them the siege narrative they have always relied on,” he said.
“The Castro family has no intention of handing over Raul Castro. Raul Castro is the bastion of legitimacy for the regime.”
Search for “acceptable transactions”
But Perez suggested the Trump administration may have other motives for announcing the indictment now.
The Republican Party, led by President Trump, is preparing for a competitive midterm election in November, and Trump’s approval rating continues to decline.
According to a poll released this month by Reuters and research firm Ipsos, President Trump’s approval rating is at its lowest level since he returned to office. Only 34 percent of respondents rated his job performance highly.
Peres explained that President Trump’s polls are suffering due to public backlash over the U.S.-Israel war in Iran and other issues.
If Wednesday’s indictments force the Cuban government into some kind of compromise, the Trump administration could see the result as a victory.
“I think in the circumstances that he’s going through right now, with his very low approval ratings, the prospect of losing his seat in the midterm elections, the still-crisis and unresolved situation in Iran, there’s going to be a pressure campaign and they’re hoping that it will lead to some acceptable agreement,” Peres said.
But Perez added that such an outcome is probably not long-term. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”
Castro, 94, became Cuba’s president in 2008, succeeding his brother Fidel Castro. Although he officially stepped down from the leadership of Cuba’s Communist Party in 2021, he is still widely seen as an influential figure within the country’s political system.
symbolic day
The unsealing of the indictment was announced on a highly symbolic day for Cubans and Cuban Americans.
May 20, 1902 was the day Cuba declared independence and the Republic of Cuba was established after the Spanish-American War and a period of U.S. military occupation.
The White House issued a statement to mark the occasion, accusing the island’s current communist leadership of “a direct betrayal of the nation for which our founding patriots bled and died.”
Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parilla responded on social media, calling the message “superficial and uninformed.”
The Trump administration’s statement is “an insult to the Cuban people and a reflection of neo-colonial nostalgia that persists among influential elements within the Cuban government,” he wrote.
Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos de Cosio also accused the Trump administration of acting on the demands of Cuban exiles in South Florida.
“Florida’s entrenched anti-Cuban fascist minority has finally found a government they can ride, pressure, and threaten to bend to their will through vote intimidation,” he wrote online.
William Leogrande, an expert on Latin American politics at American University’s School of Public Affairs, acknowledged that the Trump administration’s indictment of Castro would certainly be popular in South Florida, where Cuban exiles form a largely Republican base.
“The indictment of Raul Castro is a political gift from Marco Rubio and Donald Trump to Cuban Americans in South Florida,” Leogrande said. “This is also likely to be the final nail in the coffin for hopes for a diplomatic agreement to end the ongoing conflict.”
He noted that negotiations between the two governments have stalled.
“The Trump administration appears to be trying to lay the political foundations for military action against Cuba,” he explained.
The Trump administration itself acknowledged South Florida’s large Cuban community in remarks Wednesday, citing their experiences as evidence of the Cuban government’s violence.
“The community here, you, understand the history of the Cuban regime better than anyone in America,” Blanche told the audience at Freedom Tower. “Many families here know the cost of oppression.”
Consideration of military action
The Trump administration has been threatening military action against Cuba for months, but experts warn such an attack is likely to be unpopular.
“Polling shows that a majority of Americans, and even most Republicans, do not want an unnecessary war of choice in Cuba,” said Lee Schlenker, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible State Strategy, a foreign policy think tank.
He questioned President Trump’s claim that Cuba poses a “national security threat” to the United States, saying Cuba is instead “a small, broken, decrepit island.”
Rather, Schlenker warned that launching such an operation could provoke a backlash from President Trump’s “America First” base and undermine his efforts to limit immigration to the United States.
“Even without military action, the continued oil blockade and increasingly severe secondary sanctions against the island risk creating a massive humanitarian crisis and mass migration crisis that will put President Trump in an unnecessary predicament just months before the midterm elections,” Schlenker said.
As President Trump’s rhetoric toward Cuba becomes increasingly hostile, some members of Congress are taking action to prevent the use of military force.
In March, Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego, Tim Kaine, and Adam Schiff introduced a war powers resolution in the Senate aimed at forcing the Trump administration to seek Congressional approval before taking offensive actions.
They renewed their efforts Wednesday after Castro’s indictment was announced.
“As if the disaster of the Iran war and the resulting soaring oil prices weren’t enough, President Trump is now threatening to intervene in Cuba as well,” Gallego said in a statement in March. “He ran on the platform of America First, and now it’s clear that he’s become a puppet of the hawks within the party.”
