Florida brings more charges against former Cuba president Raul Castro

For­mer Cuban Pres­i­dent Raúl Cas­tro is fac­ing more charges in Flori­da re­lat­ed to the 1996 down­ing of civil­ian planes flown by Mi­a­mi-based ex­iles af­ter the U.S. gov­ern­ment in­dict­ed the for­mer leader ear­li­er this year.

Flori­da At­tor­ney Gen­er­al James Uth­meier on Mon­day ac­cused Cas­tro, 95, of di­rect­ing spies to in­fil­trate that the ex­ile group Broth­ers to the Res­cue and or­der­ing the at­tack on their planes. The state charge of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit first-de­gree mur­der is based large­ly on a fed­er­al in­dict­ment an­nounced in May that in­clud­ed charges of mur­der and de­struc­tion of an air­plane.

It re­mains un­clear whether Cas­tro will ever step foot in a U.S. court­room. Uth­meier said the ar­rest war­rant will re­strict Cas­tro’s abil­i­ty leave the is­land na­tion and pre­vent him from trav­el­ing to any place with an ex­tra­di­tion agree­ment with the U.S.

“I’m not ig­no­rant of the fact that Raúl Cas­tro is an old­er man who’s prob­a­bly not look­ing to march him­self in­to Mi­a­mi,” Uth­meier said. “I think oth­ers would get him be­fore the court of law would, but at the end of the day, we stand ready to pros­e­cute the case.”

Ac­cord­ing to the state com­plaint, Cas­tro was the Min­is­ter of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Armed Forces and First Vice Pres­i­dent of Cu­ba when he gave the fi­nal au­tho­riza­tion to shoot down the planes. Cuban Di­rec­torate of In­tel­li­gence agents op­er­at­ing as part of the Wasp Net­work in the Mi­a­mi area and the Flori­da Keys in­fil­trat­ed Broth­ers to the Res­cue and re­port­ed flight plans, in­ves­ti­ga­tor said.

On Feb. 24, 1996, three un­armed Cess­na air­craft de­part­ed Opa-Loc­ka Air­port in Mi­a­mi-Dade Coun­ty. Well out­side Cu­ba’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters, Cuban MiGs de­stroyed two of the civil­ian planes with air-to-air mis­siles, killing the four oc­cu­pants, the com­plaint said. Both air­craft were trav­el­ing away from Cu­ba and re­ceived no warn­ing de­spite con­tact with Ha­vana air traf­fic con­trol, U.S. of­fi­cials said.

Cuban Pres­i­dent Miguel Díaz-Canel called the fed­er­al in­dict­ment ear­li­er this year a po­lit­i­cal stunt that sought on­ly to “jus­ti­fy the fol­ly of a mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion against Cu­ba.” He ac­cused the U.S. of ly­ing and ma­nip­u­lat­ing events sur­round­ing the shoot­down.

“Our his­toric fed­er­al in­dict­ment laid the ground­work, and James and his team have now tak­en the im­por­tant step of bring­ing charges un­der Flori­da law,” U.S. At­tor­ney for the South­ern Dis­trict of Flori­da Ja­son Red­ing Quiñones said at a news con­fer­ence.

Cas­tro 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.

Mean­while, U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has been threat­en­ing mil­i­tary ac­tion in Cu­ba ever since U.S. forces cap­tured for­mer Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, the Cuban gov­ern­ment’s long­time pa­tron.

Af­ter oust­ing the Venezue­lan leader ear­li­er this year, the White House or­dered a block­ade that choked off fu­el ship­ments to Cu­ba, lead­ing to se­vere black­outs, food short­ages and an eco­nom­ic col­lapse across the is­land. —MI­A­MI (AP)

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Sto­ry by DAVID FIS­CH­ER | As­so­ci­at­ed Press