The U.S. is taking steps toward a possible indictment of Raúl Castro over Cuba’s 1996 shootdown of two humanitarian aircraft, officials say.
WASHINGTON — The United States is taking steps toward a possible indictment of Raúl Castro, Cuba’s 94-year-old former president, over the 1996 shootdown of two planes operated by the humanitarian group Brothers to the Rescue, according to U.S. officials and a source familiar with the matter.
Any indictment would still have to be approved by a grand jury. The Justice Department has not announced charges, and a department spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.
The potential case would mark a major escalation in Washington’s pressure campaign against Havana at a moment when U.S.-Cuba relations are already strained by sanctions, fuel shortages and high-level intelligence contacts. The Trump administration has threatened heavy tariffs on countries that export oil to Cuba, and oil shipments to the island have been largely cut off, contributing to energy shortages and power outages.
The 1996 incident involved two Cessna aircraft flown by Brothers to the Rescue, an exile group that searched for Cubans trying to leave the island by raft. A Cuban MiG-29 fighter jet shot down the planes in February 1996, killing four people.
An Organization of American States report found the planes were downed outside Cuban airspace and alleged that Cuba violated international law by firing without warning and without proof the action was necessary. Cuban officials have long defended the shootdown as legitimate, arguing the group had violated Cuban airspace and sought to carry out sabotage against infrastructure.
Fidel Castro, who was Cuba’s leader at the time and died in 2016, told CBS News then that the Cuban military had acted on his general orders to stop planes from encroaching on the country. Raúl Castro, his younger brother, led Cuba’s armed forces at the time.
One person, Gerardo Hernandez, was convicted in the United States of murder conspiracy in connection with the shootdown after prosecutors said he was part of a spy ring that provided information about Brothers to the Rescue to Cuban intelligence. He received a life sentence but was sent to Cuba in a 2014 prisoner swap.
The possible indictment comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a rare visit to Cuba on Thursday, meeting with Cuban officials, including figures from the Interior Ministry and Cuban intelligence. A CIA official said Ratcliffe personally delivered President Trump’s message that the United States is "prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes."
Cuba framed the meeting as part of political dialogue and said there was no legitimate basis to treat the island as a threat to U.S. national security. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, responding to the broader U.S. pressure campaign, urged Washington to lift or relax its blockade instead.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has renewed an offer of $100 million in aid for Cuba on the condition that it be distributed through the Catholic Church rather than the Cuban government. Rubio said in an NBC News interview that it is in the United States’ interest to have a prosperous Cuba rather than a failed state close to U.S. shores.
Raúl Castro formally stepped down as leader of Cuba’s Communist Party in 2021, though he is still widely viewed as one of the country’s most influential figures. His grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as Raulito, is viewed as a representative of the elder Castro and a key point of contact between Washington and Havana.
Pressure for charges has grown in Florida. The state attorney general said in March that a shuttered state investigation into the 1996 shootdown was being reopened, and Sen. Rick Scott and other Florida lawmakers have called on the Justice Department to pursue charges against Castro.
The next decisive step would be whether federal prosecutors present a case to a grand jury and whether that panel approves an indictment. Until then, Castro has not been publicly charged in the United States in connection with the shootdown.
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