The US administration plans to soon unveil criminal charges against former Cuban President Raul Castro in connection with a 1996 incident in which Cuban military aircraft shot down two civilian planes belonging to a group of Cuban exiles, killing four people.
According to a U.S. Justice Department official quoted by Reuters, federal prosecutors want to revive this 30-year-old case to justify indicting Raul Castro, now 94 years old. The charges are expected to be announced in Miami during a ceremony honoring the victims of the incident.
The incident dates back to February 24, 1996. On that day, Cuban fighter jets intercepted and destroyed two small aircraft belonging to the group “Brothers to the Rescue,” a Cuban exile organization based in the United States. The group was officially conducting humanitarian missions aimed at locating migrants attempting to flee Cuba by sea.
Cuban authorities, however, accused the organization of provoking the regime by regularly entering Cuban airspace and distributing anti-Castro leaflets over Havana. Washington strongly condemned the attack, stating that the planes had been shot down in international airspace.
The incident triggered a serious diplomatic crisis between the United States and Cuba. At the time, tensions were particularly high between Washington and the Castro brothers' regime, a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had weakened the Cuban economy.
This case also led the United States to significantly tighten its embargo against Cuba with the adoption of the Helms-Burton Act in 1996, strengthening the economic sanctions imposed on the communist island. Thirty years later, the Trump administration seems intent on using this historical case to further intensify political and legal pressure against former Cuban leaders.
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