[Miami, United States] Federal prosecutors announced criminal charges against former Cuban President Raúl Castro on Wednesday in connection with the 1996 downing of civilian aircraft flown by Miami-based exiles, as the Trump administration escalated pressure on Cuba’s socialist government. The case was announced in Miami at a ceremony that coincided with Cuban independence day, where acting Attorney General Todd Blanche tied the prosecution to long-running demands for accountability by the families of victims.
Blanche said the indictment recognized the deaths of “four murdered Americans” and described the aircraft as unarmed civilians conducting what he characterized as humanitarian missions. He spoke during the event honoring those killed, and he pointed to what he said was the rescue purpose of the flights across the Florida straits.
The charges accuse Castro, who was Cuba’s defense minister at the time, of ordering the shootdown of two small planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue. According to the indictment described by U.S. prosecutors, the grand jury secretly filed the charges in April, and the filing includes murder and destruction of an airplane. U.S. prosecutors also charged five Cuban military pilots.
Castro’s legal exposure, as prosecutors described it, includes the possibility of life in prison or the death penalty if convicted, even though it remained unclear whether he would ever be able to travel to a U.S. courtroom. Blanche told reporters that there was a warrant for Castro’s arrest, adding that U.S. authorities “expect that he will show up here, by his own will or by another way.”
Cuba’s response to the indictment was swift. President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the charges as a political stunt, saying they sought only to “justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba.” In a social media message, he accused the U.S. of lying and manipulating events around the shootdown and said Cuban officials at the time repeatedly warned that Cuba would defend against “dangerous violations” of its airspace “by notorious terrorists.”
The announcement also landed in a personal context for at least one victim’s family member. Marlene Alejandre-Triana attended the Wednesday ceremony in downtown Miami; her father, Armando Alejandre Jr., was killed in the 1996 shootdown while she was away for her first year of college. Alejandre-Triana said she had spoken with multiple federal investigators over the years seeking charges against Castro, describing him as “one of the main architects of the crime,” and she said “It has been long overdue.”
The broader backdrop to the indictment is the administration’s renewed push toward applying pressure on Havana. Observers said the charges pose a real threat in part because the U.S. has recently captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to face drug charges in New York, a move that has reshaped expectations around how far American authorities will go. The U.S. has also carried months of threats of military action for Cuba after forces captured Maduro in January, a step the Cuban government’s long-time ally had supported.
After ousting Maduro, the White House ordered a blockade that choked off fuel shipments to Cuba, contributing to blackouts, food shortages and an economic collapse, according to the account provided by U.S. officials and described in the reporting. Since Maduro’s capture, Trump has increased talk of regime change in Cuba, saying earlier this year that the U.S. would conduct a “friendly takeover” if Cuba did not open its economy to American investment and remove U.S. adversaries.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Cubans on Wednesday to demand a free-market economy with new leadership, and he said in a Spanish-language video message that “Currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country.” The reporting also said Castro retired in 2021 as head of the Cuban Communist Party but is widely believed to wield influence behind the scenes.
The underlying case centers on the period leading up to the Feb. 24, 1996 shootdown, when planes flown by Brothers to the Rescue buzzed over Havana and dropped leaflets urging Cubans to rise up against Castro’s government. The reporting said the Federal Aviation Administration investigated after Cuban protests and met with the group’s leaders to urge them to ground the flights, but that the calls were not heeded. It said missiles fired by Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets downed two unarmed civilian Cessna planes north of Havana just beyond Cuba’s airspace, killing all four men aboard, while a third plane carrying the group’s leader narrowly escaped.
Prosecutors said the investigation into Castro has stretched back to the 1990s and included earlier efforts that led to charges against other Cuban officials, some of which were never apprehended. The reporting said Guy Lewis, a former U.S. federal prosecutor in Miami, uncovered evidence linking senior Cuban military officials to cocaine trafficking by Colombia’s Medellin cartel before the case broadened after the shootdown. It also said earlier indictments focused on the head of Cuba’s air force and some MiG pilots involved in the downing, and it described a later case involving a Miami-based spy ring that prosecutors said gathered intelligence about the flights.