DOJ indicts Raul Castro in connection to 1996 attack on aircraft in which 3 US citizens were killed

The Justice Department revealed in an unsealed indictment on Wednesday that Raul Modesto Castro Ruz, the brother of former Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro, has been charged in connection with a 1996 attack on two airplanes in which four U.S. nationals, including three U.S. citizens, were killed.

The unsealed indictment against Ruz — the second revolutionary leader of Communist Cuba following the death of his brother Fidel — was made public after the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida charged him and other co-conspirators in connection with the attack.

The charges include conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, the destruction of aircraft and four counts of murder. The aircraft were humanitarian supply-and-rescue planes flown by Brothers to the Rescue (BTTR) over international waters near Cuba.

For 30 years, Cuban exiles in America and their representatives in Congress such Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., pressured the DOJ to bring charges against the 94-year-old Ruz, his late brother Fidel, and others in connection with the Cuban MiG fighter jets shooting down the BTTR civilian planes when they were outside Cuban airspace and flying back toward Florida.

Ruz is the former president of Cuba, having succeeded his brother in the role for a decade in the wake of his brother’s 2008 death, and he is also the former director of the Cuban Secret Services, the former commander-in-chief of the Cuban Air Force, and the former minister of the Ministry of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces from 1959 to 2008.

Ruz stepped down as Cuba’s president in 2018 and stepped down as first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba in 2021.

The DOJ’s indictment says Ruz authorized the use of deadly force against the BTTR flights while he led MINFAR, and that he was responsible for the February 1996 shoot down of the unarmed Cessna aircraft as they were flying back toward the U.S. mainland.

The indictment contends that from February 1994 to July 1996 at the relevant Cuban military air base of San Antonio de los Banos airfield, the military chain of command ran from the air base to the Cuban Revolutionary Air and Air Defense Forces (DAAFAR) to MINFAR, and then back down the same chain of command to the air base and its Cuban fighter pilots.

The DOJ alleges that all orders to kill by the Cuban military traveled through this chain of command with Ruz and Fidel Castro as the final decision makers.

The U.S. federal prosecutors say that it was a DAAFAR MiG fighter jet operated by co-conspirator Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez and since-deceased Luis Francisco Perez-Perez which destroyed the two BTTR aircraft, killing four U.S. nationals including three American citizens.

The DOJ stated that, at the time that the Cuban MiG fighter jets shot down the two civilian planes, the BTTR aircraft were flying outside of Cuban territory over international waters and traveling away from Cuba. The prosecutors said that the BTTR pilots were not given any warning of the imminent destruction of their aircraft by the Cuban military.

Four activists from the Brothers to the Rescue organization were killed when Cuban MiG fighters shot down their two civilian planes in international skies and over international waters on February 24, 1996. The victims were Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario Manuel de la Peña, and Armando Alejandre.

Jose Basulto, the founder of BTTR, said in a 1999 interview that “Brothers to the Rescue has not only been involved in assisting the refugees at sea, by saving their lives. We have also been very helpful by providing the opposition within the Island with an instrument of change, namely non-violence — strategic non-violence.”

A number of declassified government records showed that officials at a number of agencies inside the Clinton administration worried in the weeks leading up to the BTTR shoo tdown that the Cuban military — whether from the ground or the skies — would shoot down the Cuban-American activist aircraft.

Two decades ago, El Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald published a 2006 tape in which Raul Castro allegedly acknowledged giving the shoot down order.

“I told them [the Cuban fighter pilots] to try to knock them down over [Cuban] territory,” Raul Castro allegedly said in the recording. “Knock them down into the sea when they reappear.”

Fidel Castro admitted to TIME in 1996 that “I take responsibility for what happened” but also confirmed that his brother, Raul, had been in the chain of command as the leader of the Cuban Air Defense Forces.

“We discussed it with Raul and the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Fidel said, adding, “We gave the order to the head of the air force. On Saturday, [the Brothers to the Rescue planes] came twice. ... On the third pass, they scrambled and did their job. They shot the planes down. They are professionals. They did what they believe is the right thing.”

The Miami Herald previously reported that “in 1998, two years after the attack, federal authorities arrested several members of a Cuban spy network operating in the U.S. The network’s leader, Gerardo Hernandez, was convicted for conspiring to kill the Brothers to the Rescue pilots. He was returned to Cuba in 2014 as part of a prisoner swap.”

“In 2003, a U.S. grand jury indicted Gen. Ruben Martínez Puente — who headed the Cuban air force at the time of the incident — and the two pilots of one of the Cuban MiGs, Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez and Francisco Perez-Perez, for the murder of the four men,” the outlet added.

Then-President Bill Clinton quickly condemned the attack at the time.

“Saturday’s attack is further evidence that Havana has become more desperate in its efforts to deny freedom  to the people of Cuba,” Clinton said in February 1996, adding that “Saturday’s attack was an appalling reminder of the nature of the Cuban regime, repressive, violent, scornful of international law.”

The Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization conducted an investigation in 1996 which included a “condemnation of the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight as being incompatible with elementary considerations of humanity and the rules of customary international law.”

The U.S. Congress quickly condemned the Cuban attack in 1996.

“The Congress strongly condemns the act of terrorism by the Castro regime in shooting down the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft on February 24, 1996,” the resolution stated. “The Congress extends its condolences to the families of Pablo Morales, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Pena, and Armando Alejandre, the victims of the attack. The Congress urges the President to seek, in the International Court of Justice, indictment for this act of terrorism by Fidel Castro.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights also concluded in 1999 that “Cuba is responsible for violating the right to life (Article I of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man) to the detriment of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre, who died as a result of the direct actions of its agents on the afternoon of 24 February 1996 while flying through international airspace.”

The DOJ announced on Tuesday that the department “will make an announcement” on Wednesday at the Freedom Tower in Miami “in conjunction with a ceremony to honor the victims of the Brothers to the Rescue Murders of 1996.” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones, FBI Deputy Director Christopher G. Raia, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., were all in attendance.

A number of Republican members of Congress on Wednesday morning held a press conference condemning the Communist Cuban regime and Ruz and saying they expected him to be charged. The indictment against Ruz was unsealed later in the day.

While Fidel Castro died before facing justice for his role in the attack, his brother Raul Castro has now been indicted for his own role in the shoot-down.