The U.S. Department of Justice has secured an indictment against Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president of Cuba, for an attack on a humanitarian group more than 30 years ago.
Castro and other former senior members of Cuban leadership are being charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, destruction of aircraft and four individual counts of murder, according to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. He announced the indictment at Miami's Freedom Tower, a historical site that's represented a beacon of refuge for Cubans who escaped the Castro regime and made it to Florida.
The others charged are Lorenzo Alberto Perez‑Perez, Emilio José Palacio Blanco, José Fidel Gual Barzaga, Raul Simanca Cardenas, and Luis Raul Gonzalez‑Pardo Rodriguez.
A grand jury in Miami brought the indictment on April 23.
The DOJ alleges Castro was instrumental in shooting down two U.S. planes in 1996. The attack killed four people, including three U.S. citizens: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales, members of the anti-Castro activist group Brothers to the Rescue. The organization flew over the waters off the Florida coast, looking for any Cuban migrants using rafts and other boats to escape to the U.S.
The shooting prompted widespread condemnation among Cuban-Americans and led Congress to formally codify the U.S. embargo against Cuba, cementing sanctions that remain in effect today.
Castro's indictment comes amid a potential opening of dialogue between the two nations; CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Cuban officials, including Castro's grandson, during a visit to the island on May 14.
The indictment marks a rare U.S. move against a former foreign head of state and comes amid a broader Trump administration pressure campaign against Cuba, including tightened sanctions on countries supplying fuel to the island — worsening blackouts and deepening its economic crisis.
Ratcliffe's meeting included Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas and the head of Cuban intelligence services, a CIA official told reporters on background. Intelligence cooperation, economic stability and security issues were on the table, the official said.
The meeting was the highest-level diplomatic talk between the two countries since the U.S. launched a fuel blockade against Cuba, which contributed to a prolonged economic crisis on the island, also hitting air travel and seriously disrupting food production and the operations of hospitals and schools. Most recently, Cuba's aging power grid has collapsed, prompting major blackouts in Havana and elsewhere.
The Cuban government defended their actions at the time of the incident, saying the planes were working to undermine the Cuban government and that the Brothers to the Rescue organization was made up of anti-Cuba terrorists. Cuba also argued that the planes were shot down in its airspace, while the International Civil Aviation Organization concluded that the planes were shot down in international airspace.
Families of the victims of the attack have long sought justice for the killing of the four men. The federal government had previously indicted the pilots that shot down the aircrafts, but not Fidel or Raul Castro.
Cuban-American members of Congress led by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., called on the Trump Justice Department earlier this year to revisit the case and seek an indictment of Castro in the U.S.
Fidel Castro, who led the nation from 1959 to 2008 following the Cuban Revolution, died in 2016. Raul Castro, who succeeded his brother as president of Cuba from 2008 to 2018, officially retired from the head of the nation's Communist Party in 2021. Despite his advanced age, he continues to make occasional public appearances and is still considered an influential figure in the island nation's politics.
—NPR's Greg Myre and Eyder Peralta contributed to this report.
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