MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

United States indicts Raúl Castro over 1996 shootdown of Brothers to the Rescue aircraft

“If you kill Americans, we will pursue you, no matter who you are, no matter what title you hold, and in this case, no matter how much time has passed,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said

The US Department of Justice on Wednesday filed formal charges against former Cuban president Raúl Castro and five other Cuban military officers on counts of murder, conspiracy to murder US citizens, and destruction of aircraft, in connection with the shootdown on 24 February 1996 of two civilian planes operated by the anti-Castro organization Brothers to the Rescue. The indictment, approved on 23 April by a grand jury of the Southern District of Florida, was unveiled at the Freedom Tower in Miami on the same day the Cuban diaspora commemorates Independence Day, a date the Havana regime does not celebrate. It is the first time in nearly 70 years that a senior leader of the Cuban regime has faced criminal charges in the United States over events that resulted in the deaths of US citizens.

The other defendants are Emilio José Palacio Blanco, José Fidel Gual Barzaga, Raúl Simanca Cárdenas, Luis Raúl González-Pardo Rodríguez, and Lorenzo Alberto Pérez-Pérez. Four crew members died in the shootdown: Armando Alejandre, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales. Three of the victims were Cuban-American citizens; Morales was a legal resident of Cuban origin. Brothers to the Rescue operated humanitarian missions to assist rafters in the Florida Straits. The International Civil Aviation Organization ruled at the time that the incident took place in international waters, contradicting the Cuban regime's version, which claimed to have acted in defense of its sovereign airspace.

“If you kill Americans, we will pursue you, no matter who you are, no matter what title you hold, and in this case, no matter how much time has passed,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said during the announcement. Southern District of Florida federal prosecutor Jason Reding Quiñones had established a task force in March to open criminal investigations against figures of the Havana regime, in a sequence reminiscent of the drug-trafficking indictment against Nicolás Maduro filed in March 2020, which ended up serving as the legal basis for the US military operation that captured the Venezuelan leader on 3 January.

The indictment comes during a week of simultaneous pressure on Havana, in which CIA Director John Ratcliffe held closed-door meetings with Raúl Castro's grandson and with the Cuban Interior Minister. President Donald Trump, asked on Wednesday at the White House, said Cuba “needs help” and stated he could “achieve” change “whether the regime changes or not,” reiterating a formula similar to the one applied in Venezuela, where acting President Delcy Rodríguez remains at the head of state. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a “new relationship” conditional on radical economic changes and the holding of free, multiparty elections on the island.