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The Republican senator Lindsey Graham praised on Friday the Trump administration's decision to seek a formal criminal indictment against the former head of the Cuban Armed Forces Raúl Castro for his alleged responsibility in the shooting down of two civilian planes belonging to the organization Brothers to the Rescue in 1996.
In a message posted on his X account, Graham described the act as "cowardly and despicable" and stated that the accusation was something "long anticipated."
"If the reports are accurate, I applaud the Trump administration's decision to pursue a formal indictment against Raúl Castro of Cuba for the cowardly and despicable act of shooting down two civilian aircraft in 1996, which resulted in the deaths of four people, including three Americans," wrote the legislator.
The Associated Press and CBS News reported that the Department of Justice is preparing the indictment against Castro, 94, who was the head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) at the time of the incident.
According to the Miami Herald, the federal indictment is set to be revealed on May 20 —Cuba's Independence Day— in a symbolic event at the Freedom Tower in Miami, organized by the Southern District of Florida's Office of the State Attorney to honor the victims.
The president Donald Trump, when asked aboard Air Force One, neither confirmed nor denied the information: "I don't want to comment on that. I'll let the Department of Justice speak on it."
The shooting down occurred on February 24, 1996, when two unarmed Cessna planes from Brothers to the Rescue were shot down by Cuban MiG-29 fighters over international waters in the Florida Straits.
The four victims were Armando Alejandre Jr. (45 years old), Carlos Costa (29), Mario de la Peña (24), and Pablo Morales (29), whose bodies were never recovered.
Both the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Organization of American States (OAS) determined that the planes were shot down nine to ten nautical miles outside of Cuban airspace, without prior warning, in violation of international law.
The FBI is said to have retained documents regarding an alleged "Operation Venice," supposedly planned since February 13, 1996, and there exists an audio recording from June of that year in which Raúl Castro describes the decision-making process regarding the shoot-down.
So far, the only person charged in the U.S. in connection with the case was Gerardo Hernández, the head of the Cuban espionage network, convicted in 1999 for conspiracy to commit murder. Hernández was released in 2014 as part of the normalization agreement between the Obama and Raúl Castro administrations.
The pressure to reopen the case intensified in recent months. In February 2026, Cuban-American congress members such as Rick Scott, Carlos Giménez, Mario Díaz-Balart, and María Elvira Salazar urged the Department of Justice to reopen the case, and in March, the Florida Attorney General formally reopened the criminal investigation.
Congressman Carlos Giménez labeled Castro a "dictator" and demanded that he be charged with "killing Americans."
If it goes ahead, the accusation against Raúl Castro would be the first time a former chief of the Cuban Armed Forces faces criminal charges in the U.S. for this case, thirty years after the crime.
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