Raul Castro charged in 1996 aircraft shootdown that killed 4 Americans
Former Cuban leader Raul Castro, the younger brother of Fidel Castro, and five other men have been charged in the 1996 shootdown of two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue aircraft over international waters, an attack that killed four people, including three U.S. citizens, according to the Justice Department.
The superseding indictment, unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Miami, charges Castro, 94, of Holguin, Cuba, along with Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez, Emilio José Palacio Blanco, José Fidel Gual Barzaga, Raul Simanca Cardenas and Luis Raul Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez.
The charges include conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, two counts of destruction of aircraft and four counts of murder. If convicted, the defendants could face life in prison or the death penalty on the murder and conspiracy counts.
Brothers to the Rescue, also known as Hermanos al Rescate, was a Miami-based organization that flew humanitarian missions across the Florida Straits to search for Cuban migrants in distress. The group also flew missions supporting Cuban pro-democracy activists in the 1990s.
According to the indictment, Cuban intelligence agents infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and reported details about its flight operations back to the Cuban government. Prosecutors said those reports were used by Cuban military leaders in planning the February 24, 1996 operation.
On that day, three Brothers to the Rescue aircraft left Opa-locka Airport in South Florida for a planned humanitarian flight south of the 24th parallel. Cuban military fighter jets fired air-to-air missiles at two of the unarmed civilian Cessna aircraft, destroying them without warning.
The two aircraft, identified by tail numbers N2456S and N5485S, were flying outside Cuban territory and over international waters when they were shot down, the indictment alleges. Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales were killed.
A third Brothers to the Rescue aircraft escaped after Cuban fighter jets continued pursuing it, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors said Castro, who was Cuba’s defense minister at the time, oversaw the chain of command involved in the operation. The indictment alleges that Cuban military pilots had trained in the weeks before the attack to locate and intercept slow-moving civilian aircraft.
“For the first time in nearly 70 years, senior leadership of the Cuban regime has been charged in the United States for alleged acts of violence resulting in the deaths of American citizens,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the indictment was “a major step toward accountability” in the killings. “For 30 years these families have waited for answers, and this FBI never forgot,” he said.
In a statement, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the indictment a political action “without any legal basis,” accusing the United States of lying and manipulating the 1996 shootdown. He said Cuba acted in “legitimate defense” after repeated violations of its airspace, which he said U.S. officials had been warned about.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
