U.S. grand jury indicts Raul Castro, ex-Cuban president

Former Cuban President Raul Castro speaks during the National Assembly in 2018 in Havana, Cuba, after the country was led by the first non-Castro Cuban president since 1976. Alexandre Meneghini/Pool/Getty Images hide caption

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 and the military 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 government announced the unsealing of the indictment on Wednesday, which is also recognized as Cuban Independence Day, when U.S. occupation ended in 1902.

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. They were 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 indictment alleges Perez-Perez was one of the fighter pilots who shot the planes down.

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.

The indictment tells the world, "If you kill Americans, we will pursue you," regardless of title or how much time has passed, Blanche said.

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In a translated social media post , Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the indictment essentially a political move by the U.S. with no grounding in the law. He also said that the U.S. "lies and distorts the events surrounding the downing of the planes." He called the Brothers to the Rescue a "narco-terrorist" group.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Castro. But when asked whether the U.S. plans to extradite him or pull an operation similar to the one in January that led to the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro , Blanche provided no additional details. He said, "We expect he will show up here, either by his own will, or another way, and go to prison."

He added, "This is not a show indictment."

Indictment follows high-level U.S.-Cuba talks

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 also 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.

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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.

More indictment details

The DOJ alleges in the indictment that on Feb. 24, 1996, following orders from then-Cuban leaders Raul and Fidel Castro, the Cuban Air Force shot down the two Brothers to the Rescue planes killing the four men.

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.

In his social media post on Wednesday, Díaz-Canel wrote that Cuba acted in "legitimate self-defense" and called Castro a "hero" loved by his people.

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.

Leading up to the attack, the Brothers to the Rescue organization flew planes repeatedly over Cuban airspace, much to the leaders' disdain, and dropped leaflets containing excerpts from the United Nation's Universal Declarations of Human Rights that landed on the mainland. It helped galvanize Cuban-based anti-Castro groups.

Cuban government spies, based in Miami and that infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue, shared details of upcoming flights with the Cuban government, according to the indictment. In anticipation of future flights, the Cuban military launched training missions with their fighter pilots, including those named in the indictment, to properly locate and track the BTTR planes.

The DOJ also claims that Raul Castro gave the military express approval to use deadly force against BTTR planes. A third BTTR plane that flew on Feb. 24, 1996 escaped the attack and returned to Miami.

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.

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—NPR's Greg Myre and Eyder Peralta contributed to this report.