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DOJ considering indictment of Raúl Castro over 1996 downing of civilian planes: report

May 16, 2026 | | Print Article

The Trump Department of Justice is reportedly interested in indicting Cuba’s de facto leader, 94-year-old Raúl Castro.

While Castro, the brother of the late Fidel Castro, resigned from office in 2021, allowing Miguel Diaz-Canel to take his place, he still “remains Cuba’s power behind the throne,” according to a new CNN report.

“During his farewell at the closing of the 8th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba in April 2021, the army general warned that, as long as he lived, he would be ready, ‘with his foot in the stirrup,’ to defend socialist Cuba,” CNN notes.

“In the following years, Raúl continued to participate, on occasion, in central events celebrating the triumph of the Cuban revolution. He even received some presidents and political leaders from allied countries at the National Palace,” the reporting continues.

He’s basically the country’s unofficial de facto leader.

“The party is just a façade. Diaz-Canel has no power at all,” Sebastián Arcos of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University explained. “The power lies with Raúl and the Armed Forces who, besides having the cannons, have the bank accounts.”

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And this probably explains why, according to NBC News, the Trump administration wants to charge him over what happened on Feb. 24, 1996, when Cuban jets shot down two Brothers to the Rescue planes being flown by Cuban exile pilots.

Brothers to the Rescue was a Miami-based humanitarian group focused on searching the Florida Straits for Cubans fleeing the island.

“All four men aboard were killed,” Reuters notes. “Cuba said the planes were ​in Cuban airspace, while the United States said they were over international waters. Cuba ​defended the shootdown as legitimate defense of its airspace.”

However, the International Civil Aviation Organization sided with the United States.

Then-Cuban President Fidel Castro claimed at the time that neither he nor his brother was responsible for the planes being shot down.

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“Castro … said after the incident that he gave general orders to stop the flights but did not specifically order them to be shot down,” according to Reuters. “Castro said the military acted on ‘standing orders’ and that his brother Raul, who at the time oversaw the nation’s security services as defense ​minister, also did not ​give a specific ⁠order to shoot the planes.”

The charges against Raúl Castro are expected to be publicly announced in Miami on May 20, which is also Cuban Independence Day. But for the time being, mum’s the word.

“There’s absolutely no public information around any indictment that’s been leaked or discussed on various news outlets, and I assure you, and I assure the American people, that if and when there’s a time to talk about that, we will, obviously,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News on Friday.

News of a potential indictment comes months after lawmakers, including Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, sent a letter to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi calling for the DOJ to prosecute Castro.

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“It is our understanding, based on public information, that on February 24, 1996, Raul Castro ordered a Cuban Mig fighter jet to engage and obliterate two Brothers to the Rescue civilian aircraft over international waters,” the letter read.

“Flying those planes were three American citizens, Armando Alejandre, Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Pena and Pablo Morales, a legal U.S. resident. Those four brave men were flying small civilian aircraft over the Straits of Florida to identify and help rescue Cuban rafters making the perilous escape from totalitarian Cuba,” it continued.

In a press release, fellow Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar noted that in the years after the planes were shot down, “a U.S. District Court found Cuba liable for planning the operation.”

“Despite evidence indicating the decision to use lethal force moved through the regime’s military chain of command at a time when Raúl Castro served as Defense Minister and oversaw the armed forces, no senior regime official was ever indicted,” Salazar continued. “Nearly thirty years later, those who authorized the state-sponsored killing remain unaccountable.”

Vivek Saxena
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