Former Cuban president Raul Castro was formally indicted Wednesday on charges of conspiring to murder US nationals in the 1990s, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced.
Blanche told a news conference in Miami that a federal grand jury handed up the charges against Castro, 94, on April 23 for directing the Brothers to the Rescue murders in 1996, when Cuba’s air force shot down two planes operated by an exile-run humanitarian group, killing four.
Castro and five co-defendants are also charged with four counts of murder and additional counts of destruction of aircraft in the Feb. 24, 1996, shootdown.
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“For nearly 30 years — 30 years — the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” Blanche said. “They were unarmed civilians and were flying humanitarian missions for the rescue and protection of people fleeing oppression across the Florida Straits.”
“For the first time in nearly 70 years, senior leadership of the Cuban regime has been charged in this country … for acts of violence resulting in the deaths of American citizens,” he added. “Nations and their leaders cannot be permitted to target Americans, kill them, and not face accountability.”
The Justice Department had previously charged three Cuban military officials for the murders in 2003, but none were extradited.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), who escaped Cuba to the US with his family as a young boy following Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, suggested before the press conference that Raul Castro would face a similar fate as Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro or Panamanian leader Manuel Antonio Noriega.
“Don’t ever make the mistake that somehow Raul Castro is far removed from the politics,” Gimenez also said in the interview on Fox News’ “America Reports” ahead of the announcement.
The congressman noted that the former Cuban president founded and still leads GAESA, a military-run enterprise that controls at least 40% of the island’s economy, which has helped the Castro family maintain control over the populace.
“You cannot deal with this regime,” Gimenez continued. “There needs to be political change.”
