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Luis Raúl González Pardo Rodríguez, former lieutenant colonel of the Cuban Air Force, pleaded not guilty this Tuesday before the Federal Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami, where he faces charges of conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens for his involvement in the shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft on February 24, 1996.
The 65-year-old defendant appeared calmly before the judge and answered in Spanish. According to journalist Javier Díaz, who was present at the hearing, González Pardo "was not wearing red, but rather a completely different brown uniform, and his hair had grown." He noted that he did not have legal representation, so the court assigned him a public defender.
The prosecution is asking for a life sentence for González Pardo, who has no right to bail and will remain in detention throughout the entire process. Consulting lawyers estimate that the trial could extend for over a year.
The charges he faces include conspiracy to assassinate U.S. citizens, destruction of aircraft, and four counts of murder for the deaths of Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario Manuel de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, the four U.S. citizens who died when their Cessna 337 planes were shot down in international waters of the Florida Strait.
González Pardo is the only one of the six defendants in the federal indictment who is in U.S. custody.
The substitute indictment, issued by a federal grand jury in Miami in April 2026 and declassified on May 20, 2026 by Attorney General Todd Blanche, also includes Raúl Castro —who was the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in 1996— and four other former Cuban military officials.
The role of González Pardo in the shooting down was to pilot the MiG-29A 911, known as "Code 22," in the pursuit of the aircraft of José Basulto, founder of Brothers to the Rescue, the only one that managed to escape.
Although he did not fire the missiles that destroyed the two aircraft, the prosecution insists that his involvement in the conspiracy makes him criminally liable: “The fact that he did not fire does not mean he is not responsible for a conspiracy to kill American citizens,” according to arguments reported by Telemundo 51.
González Pardo's judicial history in the United States began in November 2025, when the FBI arrested him for immigration fraud after discovering that he had concealed nearly three decades of Cuban military history when applying for humanitarian parole in April 2024.
He was transferred from Jacksonville to Miami on June 9, 2026, to face new federal charges related to the downing in 1996.
On May 28, 2026, a court in Jacksonville sentenced him to seven months in prison for immigration offenses— a sentence he had nearly completed— but the case regarding the downing represents a much more serious process, with the possibility of him spending the rest of his life incarcerated.
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