Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche traveled to South Florida to announce the indictment during a ceremony honoring the victims of the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, in which four men were killed after Cuban military aircraft fired on civilian planes over international waters.
“For the first time in nearly 70 years, senior leadership of the Cuban regime has been charged in this country, in the United States of America, for acts of violence resulting in the deaths of American citizens,” Blanche said Wednesday. A grand jury handed back the indictment on April 23.
Federal prosecutors accuse Castro, 94, and five others of crimes tied to the Feb. 24, 1996, downing of two aircraft operated by the Miami-based Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue. The indictment includes charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and destruction of aircraft.
Castro, the brother of the late Fidel Castro, who ran Cuba as a communist state for decades, was serving as Cuba’s defense minister at the time of the incident. The Cuban government has long defended the attack as a lawful response to alleged violations of Cuban airspace, although the United States condemned the strike and later tightened sanctions on Havana.
From 2008 to 2018, Castro ran Cuba as the leader of the country and led the county’s Communist Party until 2021. He stepped down from those positions more than a decade ago but maintains a role in Cuba’s national assembly.
The indictment comes as President Donald Trump has intensified efforts to isolate Cuba economically and politically while openly signaling support for regime change on the island.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump declared that “America will not tolerate a rogue state harboring hostile foreign military, intelligence and terror operations just ninety miles from the American homeland.”
🇺🇸🇨🇺 pic.twitter.com/nwEePVJ1lX
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 20, 2026
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also posted a video message on Wednesday, speaking in Spanish, addressing the people of Cuba with an offer to begin a new relationship, adding that the U.S. could provide up to $100 million in aid.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez responded to Rubio, calling him “the mouthpiece of corrupt and vengeful interests,” but did not address the aid offer. Meanwhile, CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with officials from the country last week to inform them that the window for negotiations would not be open for long.
CUBAN LEADER WARNS OF ‘BLOODBATH’ IF US ATTACKS AS TENSION RISES
The move also recalls the Trump administration’s earlier indictment of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, which preceded a U.S. operation that brought Maduro to New York to face criminal charges.
Cuban officials did not immediately comment after the indictment Wednesday, although President Miguel Diaz-Canel warned earlier this week that any U.S. military action against Cuba would lead to a “bloodbath.”
