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The United States Department of Justice declassified on Wednesday a formal indictment against Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz and five former Cuban military officials for their alleged role in the downing of two civilian aircraft belonging to the organization Hermanos al Rescate on February 24, 1996, over international waters of the Florida Strait.
The charges against Castro, 94 years old, include conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, two charges of aircraft destruction, and four counts of murder for the deaths of Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, three of whom are U.S. citizens.
If found guilty, he faces the death penalty or life imprisonment.
The acting attorney general Todd Blanche emphasized the historic nature of the action: "For the first time in nearly 70 years, high-ranking officials of the Cuban regime are being accused in the United States of acts of violence that resulted in the deaths of American citizens. If you kill Americans, we will pursue you. No matter who you are. No matter what title you hold."
The FBI Director, Kash Patel, emphasized that the investigation was never abandoned: "For 30 years, these families waited for answers, and the FBI never forgot."
The federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Florida, Jason A. Reding Quiñones, added that "the passage of time does not erase the murder, nor does it diminish the value of these lives."
According to the accusation, since the early 1990s, Cuban intelligence agents infiltrated Hermanos al Rescate and transmitted detailed information about their flight operations to the Cuban government, data that the military command used to plan the attack.
Weeks before the shootdown, Cuban military pilots conducted training exercises to locate and intercept slow-moving civilian aircraft.
On the day of the attack, three BTTR aircraft departed from Opa-locka Airport; two of them—registered N2456S and N5485S—were shot down by air-to-air missiles fired by MiG fighters under the command chain supervised by Raúl Castro.
A third plane, carrying the founder José Basulto, managed to escape. The bodies of the four victims were never recovered.
Among the five co-defendants is Luis Raúl González-Pardo Rodríguez, 65 years old, identified as one of the pilots who directly participated in the shootdown.
González-Pardo was already in U.S. custody, arrested in November 2025 after entering the United States on humanitarian parole in 2024 and lying about his past in the Revolutionary Air Force on his residency application.
The announcement was accompanied by a ceremony at the Freedom Tower in Miami to honor the victims. President Donald Trump celebrated the accusation, calling it "a great day" for the Cuban-American community.
The Cuban regime immediately rejected the charges. Díaz-Canel described the accusation as a "political action, without any legal basis" and claimed that Cuba acted in "legitimate defense" against alleged violations of its airspace, reiterating the argument that the regime has maintained for three decades.
Raúl Castro, who appeared visibly deteriorated at the May Day event in Havana, has not held formal positions since 2021, although he retains symbolic influence within the regime. He will turn 95 years old on June 3rd.
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