The Trump administration is expected to announce a criminal case against former Cuban President Raúl Castro.
‘That’s how broke the school district is’: Crystal City ISD has less than $500, interim superintendent saysWhat we know about Marlene Vidal, the South Texas mother charged with capital murder of her 2 childrenMost wanted Texas man found and arrested in San Antonio, DPS saysFILE - Raul Castro waves a Cuban national flag during a May Day parade at Revolution Square in Havana on May 1, 2025.
FILE - Former Cuban President Raul Castro looks at the Cuban flag during his speech at the event celebrating the 65th anniversary of the triumph of the revolution in Santiago, Cuba, Jan. 1, 2024. A woman wearing U.S. flag motif pants walks past a building that houses an art installation on the Cuban Revolution, featuring photos of former Cuban President Raul Castro and former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, May 19, 2026.
FILE - A Brothers to the Rescue plane flies over The Democracy Movement flotilla at the twelve-mile limit north of Havana, Cuba, July 10, 1999. FILE - Some of the boats from the flotilla head for open waters March 2, 1996 off Key West, Fla. , carrying Cuban Americans to the site of the downing of two Brothers to the Rescue planes by Cuban fighters.
FILE - Raul Castro waves a Cuban national flag during a May Day parade at Revolution Square in Havana on May 1, 2025. related to Castro’s alleged role in the 1996 downing of two planes operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Castro, now 94, was Cuba's defense minister The expected charges include murder and destruction of an airplane, one of the people familiar with the matter said.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case ahead of the announcement. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and other top Justice Department officials were expected to be in Miami on Wednesday for a ceremony to honor those killed in the shootdown. President Donald Trump has been threatening military action in Cuba ever since U.S. forces captured the Cuban government’s longtime patron, Venezuelan President.
After ousting Maduro, the White House ordered a blockade that choked off fuel shipments to Cuba, leading to severe blackouts,Since Maduro's capture, Trump has ratcheted up talk of regime change in Cuba after pledging earlier this year to conduct aTrump’s first administration indicted Maduro on drug-trafficking charges and used that to justify removing him from power during a surprise military raid in January that whisked the Venezuelan leader to New York to face trial.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday urged the Cuban people to demand a free-market economy with new leadership that he said will chart a new course in relations with the U.S. “In the U.S., we are ready to open a new chapter in the relationship between our people,” Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said in a Spanish-language video message.
“Currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country. ” Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos F. de Cossío lashed out at Rubio on X, saying he “lies so repeatedly and unscrupulously about Cuba and tries to justify the aggression he inflicts on the Cuban people. ” Rubio"knows full well that there is no excuse for such cruel and ruthless aggression.
”There’s no indication Castro will be taken into U.S. custody anytime soon. He took over as president from his ailing older brother Fidel Castro in 2006 before handing power to a trusted loyalist, Díaz-Canel, in 2018. While he retired in 2021 as head of the Cuban Communist Party, he is widely believed to wield power behind the scenes, underscored by the prominence of his grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who previously met secretly with Rubio.
“The symbolic nature is absolutely crucial,” said Lindsey Lazopoulos Friedman, a former prosecutor at the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami who handled national security cases and crimes involving Cubans. “Even though Raúl Castro will likely stay and die in Cuba, you can use the indictment as a pressure point, a tactical advantage, to extract other concessions like the release of prisoners or to keep Russia out,” she added.
Starting in 1995, planes flown by members of Brothers to the Rescue, a group founded by Cuban exiles, buzzed over Havana dropping leaflets urging Cubans to rise up against the Castro government. The Cubans protested to the U.S. government, warning that they would defend their airspace. Federal Aviation Administration officials also opened an investigation and met with the group’s leaders to urge them to ground the flights, according to declassified government records obtained by George Washington University’s National Security Archive.
“This latest overflight can only be seen as further taunting of the Cuban Government,” an FAA official wrote in an email to her superiors after one intrusion in January 1996. “Worst case scenario is that one of these days the Cubans will shoot down one of these planes.
” But those calls went unheeded and on Feb. 24, 1996, missiles fired by Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets downed two unarmed civilian Cessna planes a short distance north of Havana just beyond Cuba’s airspace. All four men aboard were killed. Guy Lewis, who was a federal prosecutor, uncovered evidence linking senior Cuban military officials to cocaine trafficking by Colombia’s Medellin cartel.
Following the shootdown, the investigation expanded, and prosecutors pursued charges against Raúl Castro for leading a vast racketeering conspiracy by Cuba’s armed forces. In the end, the Clinton administration indicted four individuals, including the MiG pilots, the head of the Cuban air force and the head of a Cuban spy network in Miami — the only one to see the inside of a U.S. prison — for providing valuable intelligence about the flights.
The incident led the U.S. to harden its position against Cuba, even though the Cold War had ended and the Castros’ support for revolution across Latin America was a fading memory. But Castro himself was spared as the Clinton administration — which had quietly sought to expand relations with Cuba prior to the incident — raised foreign policy concerns about such a high-profile indictment.
“Raúl was definitely one who slipped through the noose,” Lewis said. “The crime is notorious. Three U.S. citizens and one legal permanent resident were killed in a premeditated orchestrated murder. That should never be forgotten.
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Donald Trump John Ratcliffe Washington News George Washington Todd Blanche Carlos F. De Cossío Fidel Castro Marco Rubio U.S. News Nicolas Maduro Lindsey Lazopoulos Friedman Guy Lewis Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro
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