From the HERE City National Desk
MIAMI — Florida has opened its own criminal case against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, securing a state arrest warrant that accuses him of conspiring to commit first-degree murder in the 1996 downing of two Brothers to the Rescue planes off Cuba.
The warrant was issued in Miami-Dade County and carries no bond. A judge found probable cause that Castro, now 95, took part in a plot that killed the four men aboard the unarmed civilian aircraft, and the document orders law enforcement to take him into custody right away. Attorney General James Uthmeier reopened the state’s inquiry into Castro once he became the state’s top lawyer, and he and Gov. Ron DeSantis planned to unveil the warrant together on Monday morning.
Prosecutors from the attorney general’s statewide prosecution office will run the case, because the alleged conspiracy spans more than one judicial circuit. Should he ever be detained in another U.S. jurisdiction, the warrant lets Florida pursue his extradition to answer the felony count.
The state charge stacks on top of a federal case. The U.S. Department of Justice in May unsealed a superseding indictment against Castro and five other defendants tied to the Cuban government, charging conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destroying aircraft.
Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based group, flew small planes over the Florida Straits looking for Cuban migrants in trouble at sea, and by the mid-1990s it had also dropped pro-democracy leaflets over the island. Three of its planes headed toward Cuba from South Florida on Feb. 24, 1996. Federal prosecutors say Cuban fighter jets fired missiles at two of the Cessnas over international waters, destroying them without warning.
Four men died when the two planes went down: Armando Alejandre Jr., Pablo Morales, Carlos Costa and Mario de la Peña. Three of the four held U.S. citizenship.
According to Florida investigators, the plan was passed up through Cuba’s military hierarchy until it reached Raúl Castro and his late brother Fidel, who made the final decision. The warrant cites a recorded statement Castro gave months after the attack in which he described telling senior commanders to shoot the planes down over the water rather than over Havana. Federal prosecutors also allege that Cuban agents had infiltrated the group in the early 1990s and passed details of its flights to Havana.
Cuba has rejected the U.S. prosecution, arguing that the group repeatedly entered its airspace and that the government acted to defend its sovereignty. For three decades the attack has stayed a painful memory for the Cuban-American community in South Florida.
Section: More Washington DC crime news
Filed under: Washington DC Crime News
