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Luis Raúl González-Pardo Rodríguez, a retired lieutenant colonel of the Cuban Air Force, was sentenced this Thursday in a federal court in Jacksonville to seven months in prison for immigration fraud, although at the time of the ruling he had only about a week left to serve of his sentence, according to information from Telemundo 51.
The 65-year-old former soldier had pleaded guilty in January 2026 to charges of visa fraud and making false statements to a federal agency, thereby avoiding trial. According to prosecutors, González-Pardo concealed nearly 30 years of military history in Cuba—having served in the Air Force and Revolutionary Anti-Aircraft Defense from 1980 to 2009—when he applied for immigration benefits after entering the country with a humanitarian parole in April 2024.
"He is accused of fraud in the visa application or residence application, and of providing false testimony to a government official," explained immigration attorney Avelino González, who is not connected to the case.
The defense argues that González-Pardo had already visited the United States in May 2017 with a tourist visa and that on that occasion he did disclose his past as a member of the Revolutionary Air Force of Cuba.
The case took on a radically different dimension on May 20, when the Department of Justice declassified a federal indictment that includes González-Pardo along with Raúl Castro and four other former Cuban military personnel for the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes on February 24, 1996.
The charges include conspiracy to assassinate U.S. nationals, destruction of aircraft, and four individual counts of murder for the deaths of Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, which occurred when Cuban MiG fighters shot down two civilian planes over international waters in the Florida Straits.
According to the accusation, González-Pardo piloted the MiG-29A 911 in the pursuit of the airplane belonging to José Basulto—the only one that managed to escape—which also carried Silvia Iriondo and other Cuban exile activists.
"Obviously, he stated that he did not fire, but the fact that he did not fire does not mean he is not responsible for a conspiracy to kill American citizens and a legal resident of the United States, in international airspace, during a humanitarian flight," said Iriondo, a survivor of the shootdown.
González-Pardo was identified as "Code 22" in the radio communications of the operation by researcher Luis Domínguez from the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, who analyzed the recordings for years and alerted the FBI, which arrested him in early November 2025.
"He was part of the second group that went to the Soviet Union to study and fly the MiG-29. That's why, that day, he was flying a single-seat MiG-29," explained Domínguez.
The researcher emphasizes that González-Pardo is the only one of the six accused who is in U.S. custody, making him a potential key witness to reconstruct the chain of command of the Cuban military operation.
“He has all the information about what happened that day; he was there, he knows who was in the control tower, who gave the orders, all the plans. There is no one else here with that kind of information,” Domínguez assured.
If found guilty in the new federal charge, González-Pardo could face life imprisonment. Although Raúl Castro has never set foot on U.S. soil and there is no extradition treaty between Cuba and the United States, the indictment represents a historic step for the families of the victims of the downing of Brothers to the Rescue, who have been seeking justice for nearly three decades.
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