Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced on Monday at Florida International University in Miami that the state has secured an arrest warrant for former Cuban leader Raúl Castro over the 1996 shootdown of two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue civilian planes.
The no-bond warrant, signed October 16 by Miami-Dade Chief Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan, charges Castro, 95, with one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. The February 24, 1996 shootdown killed four men — Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Peña and Armando Alejandre Jr. — three of them U.S. citizens and one a legal permanent resident.
According to the affidavit, Cuban spies infiltrated the Miami- and Key West-based humanitarian group and relayed flight information to Havana, and Castro, then Cuba's defence minister, was a final decision-maker in the shootdown.
The state case follows a May 20 federal indictment of Castro and five others. U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones said federal and state investigations are running in parallel — a remarkable legal escalation, three decades after the shootdown, against a former head of state who remains in Cuba.
