Florida AG reopens probe into Raul Castro’s role in 1996 plane shootdown

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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said Wednesday that his office has reopened a state-level criminal investigation into former Cuban leader Raul Castro’s alleged role in the February 1996 shootdown of Brothers to the Rescue planes operated by anti-communist exiles. Uthmeier said the case had started several years ago but was shut down by the Biden administration, prompting Florida to restart review of the matter.

At a news conference in Miami, Uthmeier said, “When this came to my attention, we reactivated the files,” adding, “So yes, that investigation will be ongoing.” He said he could not “really say too much more at this point,” but pledged to continue the investigation. Uthmeier said he understood that “a lot of members of the state legislature and other people here in Florida would like to see some resolution and ideally accountability.”

Uthmeier’s comments came as political attention in Florida intensified ahead of the incident’s 30th anniversary, a period during which Miami Republicans and Florida Sen. Rick Scott called on the Trump administration to reopen its criminal investigation focused on Castro. The renewed push unfolded amid what the AP described as Trump’s increasingly aggressive stance toward Cuba’s communist leadership following the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

In the Feb. 13 letter to Trump, lawmakers including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez said “We believe unequivocally that Raul Castro is responsible for this heinous crime,” and wrote that “It is time for him to be brought to justice.” The letter said decades-old news reports indicate Castro, then head of Cuba’s military, gave the order to shoot down the unarmed Cessna aircraft used in the incident.

On Wednesday, Uthmeier said accountability is needed if crimes against Florida citizens were committed, while acknowledging his office was still working within limits of what it could disclose publicly. He also said his office had not yet provided additional comment in response to a request for more information about the investigation, and Cuban government officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Brothers to the Rescue shootdown has been prosecuted in the United States in part, but with limited reach for additional defendants. To date, the U.S. has convicted only one person for conspiracy to commit murder connected to the incident: Gerardo Hernández, the leader of a Cuban espionage ring dismantled by the FBI in the 1990s, who received a life sentence and was released in December 2014 in a prisoner swap after being convicted.

In addition to Hernández, the AP reported that two fighter jet pilots and their commanding officer were indicted, but that they have remained outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement while living in Cuba.

Uthmeier’s renewed investigation keeps the 1996 case in focus at the state level even as the federal prosecutions remain constrained by international custody and jurisdiction. The decision also underscores how Florida’s political and legal institutions are pressing for accountability tied to the incident’s decades-old allegations as the anniversary nears.