The United States is moving to prosecute former Cuban President Raul Castro over the 1996 shooting down of a plane.
Rubio says current situation in Cuba is ‘unacceptable’
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday (May 5) that the current situation in Cuba is unacceptable, adding that the US will address it, but not today.
WASHINGTON — The United States is moving to prosecute former Cuban President Raul Castro, two sources familiar with the matter told USA TODAY.
Officials said the charges are related to a 30-year-old incident in 1996 when the Cuban government shot down two planes operated by humanitarian groups. The indictment must be approved by a grand jury.
News that the U.S. is considering indicting Mr. Castro came hours after CIA Director John Ratcliffe led a delegation to Havana on May 14, delivering a message from President Donald Trump to Cuban officials and Raul “Laurito” Guillermo Rodríguez Castro. Mr. Laurito is Mr. Castro’s grandson.
The possible indictment and charges against former Cuban leader Raul Castro, now 94, were first reported by CBS News.
The 1996 shooting down of two civilian planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue is one of the most politically charged events in modern U.S.-Cuba relations, and 30 years later, some U.S. officials are still pursuing criminal charges.
These officials, including a group of mostly Republican congressmen, have targeted Raul Castro, Fidel Castro’s brother, for his alleged role in the incident.
Tensions between the United States and Cuba have focused on the incident for decades.
what happened in 1996
On February 24, 1996, two planes operated by a humanitarian organization were shot down by a Cuban Air Force MiG fighter jet while patrolling the Florida Strait searching for endangered Cuban rafters attempting to reach U.S. shores.
Fidel Castro claimed that the plane had violated Cuban airspace.
Congress would later conclude that Brothers to the Rescue was “flying an unarmed, unprotected aircraft on the same mission as the hundreds it has flown since 1991 and posed no threat to the Cuban government, the Cuban military, or the Cuban people.”
Raul Castro was Cuba’s defense minister and commander of the Cuban military at the time, and is widely believed to have been the commander of the country’s military and intelligence operations at the time of the shooting.
On February 13, 2026, four U.S. congressmen led by Representative Mario Díaz-Balart called on President Trump to indict Mr. Castro as a way to address “long-standing injustices that, under your leadership, your administration is uniquely positioned to resolve once and for all.”
Lawmakers said Castro was “responsible for the cold-blooded murder of three Americans and one U.S. permanent resident” in the downing of the plane.
“It is our understanding, based on publicly available information, that on February 24, 1996, Raul Castro ordered Cuban MiG fighter jets to engage and destroy two Rescue Brothers civilian aircraft in international waters,” the letter to Trump, which was also signed by Republican Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Jimenez of Florida, and Nicole Malliotakis of New York, said.
The four senators revealed a series of facts about the case, including an interview with Fidel Castro in Time, which they said would provide important evidence “regarding Raul Castro’s complicity in the crime.”
Over time, the case evolved into both a criminal prosecution and a counterintelligence operation by U.S. officials and Cuban intelligence agents in Miami against the Cuban government.
President Bill Clinton imposed wide-ranging sanctions against the island in response to the incident. A federal grand jury indicted two Cuban fighter pilots and a Cuban air force commander for the murders of four brothers and rescue workers.
