The Justice Department unsealed a federal indictment Wednesday against former Cuban President Raúl Castro, accusing the 94-year-old communist leader of playing a central role in a 1996 attack that left three Americans and one United States resident dead.
Castro, the younger brother of the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, faces charges including conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, destruction of aircraft, and murder, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced in Miami to a cheering crowd. The Trump administration hopes to try Castro on United States soil.
The charges stem from a 1996 incident wherein Cuba shot down two planes operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue. The organization attempted to search for Cubans fleeing the communist country by boat. Four people were killed in the attack.
“For nearly 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” Blanche said.
“Raul Castro and five codefendants participated in a conspiracy that ended with Cuban military aircraft, firing missiles at those civilian planes and killing four Americans,” he added. “My message is clear: The United States and President Trump does not and will not forget its citizens.”
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) May 20, 2026
The Trump administration’s latest action is part of a broader pressure campaign against Cuba. Just hours before the announcement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a video message in Spanish to the Cuban people.
“The reason you are forced to survive 22 hours a day without electricity is not due to an oil ‘blockade’ by the United States. As you know better than anyone, you have been suffering from blackouts for years,” Rubio said.
“The real reason you don’t have electricity, fuel, or food is because those who control your country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people,” he added.
(Photo by ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP via Getty Images)
Rubio also mentioned Castro and the military-run business he founded, GAESA, and Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, whom the United States captured in January.
Cuba’s energy crisis only worsened after American Special Forces captured Maduro in a midnight raid and brought him to the United States to face multiple charges, including narco-terrorism. Venezuela was once Cuba’s main oil exporter.
“Today, while you suffer, these businessmen have $18 billion in assets and control 70% of Cuba’s economy,” Rubio said. “They profit from hotels, construction, banks, stores and even from the money your relatives send you from the United States.”
“Instead of using the money to buy oil, like all other countries in the world, they depended on free oil from Hugo Chávez and Maduro to keep the money. But now that the free oil has stopped coming, they buy fuel for their generators and their vehicles while the people are asked to sacrifice,” he added.
During Wednesday’s press conference, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier slammed American politicians who “looked the other way” and took aim at former President Barack Obama for attending a 2016 baseball game in Havana alongside Castro.
“And yet for too long leaders in Washington looked the other way. They sat by idly, they even attended baseball games with the very man that directed the murders,” he said.
“It may be a friendly takeover,” Trump said. “They’re really in, they’re down to, uh, as they say, fumes. They have no energy. They have no money. They’re in deep trouble on a humanitarian basis.”
Trump weighed in after Wednesday’s announcement, saying, “We have Cuba on our mind. This was a very big moment for, not only Cuban Americans, but people who came from Cuba, they want to go back to Cuba, see their family in Cuba,” he said.
Castro formally stepped down as Cuba’s president in 2018 and as head of the Communist Party in 2021, though he is still widely viewed as influential within the communist regime.
.png)
.png)
