MIAMI — Florida has issued a state arrest warrant for former Cuban leader Raul Castro on a charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in connection with the 1996 shootdown of two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue planes, according to USA Today.
The warrant, signed by Chief Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, charges Castro with one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, USA Today reported. Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the warrant on Monday at a news conference at Florida International University’s College of Law in Miami, alongside Governor Ron DeSantis, according to Florida reporting. The warrant is a no-bond warrant, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement release cited in reporting.
“Raul Castro ordered the murder of four Floridians in cold blood, and Florida will never stop pursuing accountability for that communist conspiracy,” Uthmeier said, according to USA Today. “It was not an accident what happened. It was murder,” he said at the news conference. “The evidence makes abundantly clear that there was a conspiracy.”
The case reaches back to February 24, 1996, when Cuban Air Force fighters shot down two planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based group of Cuban exiles that flew search-and-rescue missions looking for rafters in the Florida Straits. Four men were killed: Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Pena and Armando Alejandre Jr. Three were U.S. citizens and one was a legal permanent resident, according to Florida officials. The affidavit, as reported by USA Today, says Castro — then Cuba’s minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and first vice president — was a final decision-maker in the chain of command that authorized the shootdown. Those are allegations in a warrant; they have not been proven in court, and Castro has not been taken into custody.
The state warrant adds to a federal case. The United States indicted Castro in May in connection with the incident, in a case that also names five other defendants and includes counts of murder, destruction of aircraft and conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, according to reporting on the federal indictment. Castro, 95, is believed to be living in Havana. He officially retired from Cuban leadership but remains an influential figure; he is the brother of Fidel Castro, who ruled Cuba from 1959 until transferring power to Raul in 2006.
Why it matters: the shootdown was one of the gravest crises in U.S.-Cuba relations in the 1990s, prompting tightened U.S. sanctions at the time, and it remains a defining grievance for Miami’s Cuban exile community, where the four men’s families have sought accountability for three decades. A Florida warrant cannot by itself bring a defendant in Havana before a Miami court, so its immediate effect is legal and symbolic rather than custodial.
What happens next: Florida officials say the warrant directs law enforcement to arrest Castro if he comes within reach of U.S. jurisdiction. The federal indictment announced in May proceeds separately. Cuba’s government had not responded in the reporting cited here. Read the USA Today report here.
