DOJ Unseals Murder Indictment Against Former Cuban President Raúl Castro Over 1996 Plane Shootdown

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on May 20 the unsealing of a federal grand jury indictment against former Cuban President Raúl Castro, charging him with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, two counts of destruction of aircraft, and four individual counts of murder ^[1][2]. The indictment, returned by a Miami grand jury on April 23, charges Castro on one count of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder, and two counts of destruction of aircraft. The charges add Castro and five co-defendants to an existing criminal case stemming from the 1996 attack, a case that has been dormant since it was filed in 2003. Joining Blanche at a Miami press conference were U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason A. Reding Quiñones, Deputy FBI Director Christopher Raia, and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.

The underlying conduct dates to Feb. 24, 1996. The indictment alleges that four Americans, Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, were flying in civilian aircraft when Cuban military aircraft shot their planes down in international waters and killed them. Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based organization, conducted humanitarian flight operations across the Florida Straits to search for Cuban migrants in distress. U.S. officials allege that Cuban intelligence agents infiltrated the organization in the early 1990s and relayed detailed information about its flight operations to the Cuban government, which military leadership used in planning the Feb. 24, 1996, operation. The indictment alleges that Castro, who led Cuba's armed forces at the time, "met with military leaders and authorized them to use decisive and deadly action" against Brothers to the Rescue planes in January 1996, following several earlier rounds of flights by the group to drop leaflets. Cuba has argued the planes were shot down in its airspace, while the International Civil Aviation Organization concluded they were shot down in international airspace.

The Castro indictment adds to but does not initiate the underlying case. In addition to Castro, the indictment charges Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez, one of the fighter pilots who allegedly shot down the two planes, with conspiracy, murder, and destruction of aircraft. Perez-Perez was previously indicted for the incident in 2003, along with the other pilot on his MiG-29 and the now-deceased former head of Cuba's air force. That case was never tried. The indictment also alleges that Cuba's intelligence agency tasked a network of spies in Florida with informing on Brothers to the Rescue, and that several members of that spy ring were charged more than two decades ago, including one man convicted of murder conspiracy in connection with the 1996 shootdown. That convicted operative, Gerardo Hernandez, returned to Cuba in a 2014 prisoner swap. Cuba is not expected to extradite Castro, and Blanche hinted at the possibility of further U.S. action, noting that a warrant for Castro's arrest had been issued and that the government expected Castro "will show up here by his own will or by another way."

The prosecution fits a pattern the Trump administration has applied elsewhere in the hemisphere. DOJ first charged Nicolás Maduro and 14 current and former Venezuelan officials with narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and related offenses in March 2020, under then-Attorney General William Barr. On Jan. 3, 2026, a superseding indictment was unsealed after Maduro and his wife were captured during a U.S. military operation in Caracas supported by the DOJ and CIA. Maduro and his wife were transported to the United States and taken into federal custody in New York City, where they have pleaded not guilty. The Castro indictment marks a further escalation in the Trump administration's pressure campaign against Cuba, which gained traction after U.S. forces captured Maduro, a crucial ally of Cuba's communist government, in January. Cuban-American members of Congress, led by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., had called on the Trump Justice Department earlier this year to revisit the case and seek an indictment of Castro.

The indictment is one element of a broader set of coercive measures directed at Havana. In January 2026, President Trump signed an Executive Order declaring a national emergency and establishing a process to impose tariffs on goods from countries that sell or otherwise provide oil to Cuba, invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. On May 1, Trump issued a separate executive order applying IEEPA's blocking-sanctions authority, the same legal mechanism used in maximum-pressure campaigns against Iran, Russia, and North Korea. The new sanctions target officials, entities, and anyone complicit in corruption or human rights violations, as well as people operating in Cuba's energy, defense, mining, and financial sectors, and foreign banks and companies that do business with sanctioned Cuban entities could also be cut off from U.S. markets. CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba to meet with Castro's grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, a surrogate for his grandfather and a key point of contact between the U.S. and Cuban governments. A U.S. fuel blockade has blocked shipments of oil into Cuba since January, prompting blackouts lasting up to 22 hours a day in parts of Havana.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel rejected the charges. In a social media post, Díaz-Canel wrote that Cuba acted in "legitimate self-defense" and called Castro a "hero" loved by his people. Cuba's foreign minister said in a statement the downing of the planes was in "legitimate defense" and that the indictment "rests on lies and conceals duly documented historical truths." Hours before the Castro indictment came down, Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied in a video message that the U.S. is responsible for deepening the island's energy crisis. Senior U.S. officials have indicated that the end goal of these policies is to bring about political and economic liberalization in Cuba, including the potential removal of Díaz-Canel from power. Blanche, when asked whether other regime figures could face charges related to the 1996 attack, said, "This is an indictment, in some ways, 30 years in the making," and declined to rule out further action.