The U.S. is seeking to indict Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president of Cuba and brother of Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro, as part of an effort to prosecute senior Cuban Communist Party officials, according to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) official.
According to CBS News, the potential prosecution is expected to focus on Cuba’s 1996 shootdown of planes operated by the humanitarian group Brothers to the Rescue.
The activist group, based in Miami, Florida, was founded in 1991 by a group of Cuban exiles who strongly opposed the Cuban Communist regime and its former leader, Fidel Castro.
The organization aims to "support the efforts of the Cuban people to free themselves from dictatorship through the use of active non-violence.” The activist group does so by assisting and rescuing Cuban refugees who escape the island in rafts.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, Jason Reding Quiñones, has been overseeing an initiative to target senior Cuban government officials in the Communist Party for prosecution since Mar. 2026.
Quiñones’s task force includes officials from federal and local law enforcement agencies, and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Brothers To The Rescue Incident
In Feb. 1996, the Cuban government shot down two Cessna aircrafts operated by the organization with a Cuban MiG-29 fighter jet, killing four people.
In Sept. 1999, the Organization of American States’ (OAS) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights accused the Cuban government of violating international law.
The commission found that the aircrafts were downed outside of Cuban airspace. The autonomous group also alleged that the Communist government fired without warning and without evidence that it was a national security concern.
For decades, Cuban officials have claimed the take-down’s legitimacy, arguing that the group did violate Cuban airspace and aimed to execute acts of sabotage on Cuban infrastructure.
Florida Lawmakers Push For Indictment
In light of the news to prosecute the former Cuban leader, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote, “Let ‘er rip, it’s been a long time coming!” on X.
Gov. DeSantis is among many Florida lawmakers who have called on the DOJ to prosecute Castro.
