The researcher Luis Domínguez, from the project Cuban Repressors, described this week the difficult dilemma faced by Luis Raúl González-Pardo, a former pilot of the Cuban Air Force sentenced on Thursday to seven months in prison for immigration fraud in a federal court in Jacksonville, Florida.
González-Pardo, 65 years old, is also charged in Miami along with Raúl Castro and four other Cuban military officials for the downing of the aircraft belonging to Hermanos al Rescate on February 24, 1996, an attack that resulted in the deaths of four Cuban-American activists whose bodies were never recovered.
"He is at a crossroads. He has a daughter who was in the military until recently... I received information that she is now out of Cuba in the Bahamas, piloting ATR planes. But the problem is that he has his wife in Cuba. So he could help the prosecution here dismantle all of that. But he has someone in Cuba," explained Luis Domínguez in an interview with Tania Costa, in CiberCuba.
The researcher noted that the decision to cooperate or not with the U.S. prosecutor lies exclusively with the former pilot.
"The problem is his, not mine. He was the one who participated, he was the one who came, he was the one who hid," asserted Domínguez, who identified González-Pardo as one of the five pilots involved in the shootdown through United Nations transcripts and intelligence documents.
Domínguez also revealed that he stays in direct contact with former teammates of the pilot who trained alongside him in the Soviet Union.
"I was talking to them until yesterday. They were asking me what was happening in the hearing. Journalists who were there were telling me, and they were asking me for the information," the researcher detailed.
Regarding his own role in the case, Domínguez was unequivocal: "I only report the truth and seek justice. It's what I've done my whole life and will continue to do."
The investigator also confirmed that the five pilots charged in the case of the shootdown from 1996 are still alive. Domínguez provided information about González-Pardo's location in Cuba, where he lived at 35th Street, number 24, in the Colón neighborhood, Plaza de la Revolución, Havana, in a micro-brigade building.
He also identified a second pilot involved in the attack: Lorenzo Alberto Pérez Pérez, who resides at 30th Street, number 847-C, on an avenue in Havana, and about whom Domínguez had previously published a video of the building where he lives.
The researcher warned that his work will continue regardless of the pressures: "Throw stones at whoever you want, but be careful about throwing stones at someone who seeks the truth and justice, because that is not acceptable."
González-Pardo, arrested in November 2025, is the only one of the accused in the case of the downing who is currently in U.S. custody, making him a potentially key figure for the judicial process underway in Miami against Raúl Castro and the other defendants.
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