The United States has indicted former Cuban President Raul Castro over the 1996 downing of two civilian planes flown by the Miami based exile group Brothers to the Rescue near Cuba.
The indictment was unsealed in Miami nearly 30 years after the incident and marks one of the sharpest escalations in tensions between Washington and Havana in recent years.
US prosecutors say Raul Castro was serving as Cuba’s defence minister when Cuban fighter jets were ordered to intercept and shoot down the unarmed aircraft on February 24 1996 killing four Cuban American exiles.
Castro now 94 faces charges including conspiracy to kill US nationals murder and destruction of aircraft along with five other Cuban military officials named as co defendants in the case.
According to the US Department of Justice the planes were flying humanitarian missions for Brothers to the Rescue a group that searched for Cuban migrants at sea and dropped leaflets and supplies over the Florida Straits.
US officials say radar data and recordings from Cuban pilots show the planes were shot down over international waters not Cuban airspace contradicting Havana’s long standing claim that they were violating Cuban territory.
Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said the United States would pursue anyone who kills Americans no matter their position or how much time has passed describing the four victims as unarmed civilians on a humanitarian flight.
Cuba’s current president Miguel Diaz Canel has dismissed the indictment as political theatre accusing the Trump administration of manipulating the 1996 events to justify a harder line against Havana and even potential military action.
The move comes as relations between the United States and Cuba are already strained by a US fuel embargo that has deepened Cuba’s economic crisis and led to widespread power cuts on the island.
The case is unlikely to result in Raul Castro appearing before a US court because Cuba does not extradite its former leaders. However the indictment further isolates the Cuban political elite internationally and tightens US legal pressure on the regime.
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