As the Trump administration has pressed Cuba’s socialist government to open its economy to American investment, the Justice Department on Wednesday announced criminal charges aimed at Raúl Castro, a former Cuban president and longtime defense figure, in a case tied to the 1996 shootdown of aircraft flown by Miami-based exiles. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche made the announcement in Miami and said federal prosecutors expect Castro to face the charges in U.S. court.
The indictment alleges that Castro authorized the use of deadly force against Brothers to the Rescue after the group’s aircraft flew pro-democracy leaflet drops over Havana in January 1996. According to prosecutors, Castro and Fidel Castro, who was Cuba’s president at the time, were the “final decision makers” on orders to kill.
Prosecutors said Raúl Castro ordered the Cuban military in February 1996 to begin training with Russian-made MiG fighter jets to locate, track and intercept the small planes operating near the island’s coast. The government’s allegations frame the training as part of preparations leading up to the Feb. 24 incident, when the two downed aircraft were shot down over international waters.
On Feb. 24, 1996, prosecutors said the three Brothers to the Rescue planes took off at about 1:30 p.m. from an airport in Miami-Dade County, Florida. U.S. prosecutors said that outside Cuban airspace, Cuban MiG pilots shot down two unarmed Cessna planes without warning, and that the MiG pilots then followed a third plane that escaped destruction.
Cuban officials disputed parts of how the incident unfolded at the time. At a late-February 1996 United Nations Security Council meeting, a Cuban official insisted that the planes were violating Cuban airspace when they were shot down and that one civilian pilot ignored warnings not to enter that airspace, according to Security Council records. The official also alleged the United States took no effective measures to prevent such violations by U.S. pilots despite warnings from Cuba.
The indictment charges Castro and five other people, including MiG pilots. The U.S. government brought a conspiracy-to-kill U.S. nationals count as well as multiple murder and destruction of aircraft counts, and prosecutors said the murder and conspiracy charges carry maximum punishment of the death penalty or life in prison, though it was unclear whether Castro would ever be in U.S. custody to stand trial.
Cuba’s current leadership rejected the indictment. President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the charges and accused U.S. officials of lying about the 1996 shootdown, saying the case was “a political action without any legal basis” aimed at bolstering what he described as a fabricated justification for military aggression against Cuba. Díaz-Canel also wrote on X that the shootdown was “legitimate self-defense” after repeated and dangerous violations of Cuba’s airspace by “notorious terrorists,” as the post described.
Within the Cuban-American community in Florida, some people said the charges were long awaited. Marlene Alejandre-Triana, whose father, Armando Alejandre Jr., was among those killed in the shootdown, called the charges “long overdue,” and said her father only wanted to bring freedom to Cuba. Peter Hernandez, whose family has a fruit and vegetable market in Little Havana, said he would support sending the U.S. military to arrest Castro, adding, “He’s a criminal.”
Brothers to the Rescue dates to 1980, during an era of Cuban migration to the United States. The group said it aimed to help Cuban refugees by dropping supplies from small planes and alerting the U.S. Coast Guard during a lengthy crisis across the Florida straits—an effort that, prosecutors said, ultimately led to the 1996 flights that ended in the downings.