Raul Castro, who spent years at the pinnacle of Cuba’s government alongside his late brother Fidel, has been indicted in U.S. federal court on charges of murder and conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens stemming from the 1996 attack on a flight of planes trying to deliver aid to Cuban refugees.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the charges in Miami on Wednesday at a ceremony commemorating 30 years since the two planes were downed off the island’s coast, killing four Cuban exiles on board.
Mr. Castro, 94, was first vice president and minister of defense at the time of the shootdown and would later take over as president after his brother stepped aside in 2006.
Though Raul Castro gave up the presidency in 2018 and relinquished his role as first secretary of Cuba’s Communist Party in 2021, he’s still seen as the leading power on the island.
“For nearly 30 years, 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” Mr. Blanche said. “The United States and President Trump [do] not, and will not, forget its citizens.”
Mr. Blanche said the planes were unarmed and shot down by Cuban missiles. He added that Mr. Castro and several others who the U.S. says were involved face conspiracy and murder charges as well as charges of destruction of aircraft.
The charges come as Mr. Trump has upended relations with the island nation, offering promises of assistance and threats of punishment.
“Cuba is a failed nation. Cuba needs help, and we’ll do that,” he said.
The U.S. acknowledged that CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Cuba last week to relay Mr. Trump’s views.
Current Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez has railed against a fuel blockade the Trump administration has imposed on the island nation, calling it immoral.
“The collective punishment to which the Cuban people are being subjected is an act of genocide that must be condemned by international organizations and criminally prosecuted against its promoters,” he said on social media, in a post translated from Spanish.
But Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is of Cuban descent, said Cubans have faced energy pressure and regular blackouts for years.
“The real reason you don’t have electricity, fuel or food is because those who control your country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people,” he said.
He singled out a Cuban defense firm founded by Mr. Castro that he said controls most of the island’s economy.
Mr. Rubio also pointed out that Cuba no longer gets free oil from Venezuela.
That change came after the U.S. military conducted a shock raid in January, capturing then-Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and bringing him to the U.S. to face a criminal indictment for drug-dealing and weapons charges.
The new regime in Venezuela has been much more willing to cooperate with the U.S.
Mr. Maduro’s fate weighs heavily on conversations about Mr. Castro and Cuba.
