{"id":682485,"date":"2026-05-20T18:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/682485\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T18:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:51:10","slug":"cubas-ex-president-raul-castro-indicted-in-u-s-on-murder-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/682485\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuba\u2019s ex-president Ra\u00fal Castro indicted in U.S. on murder charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Cuba’s former president Ra\u00fal Castro stepped down from the presidency in 2018 but remains a powerful figure in Cuban politics.Alexandre Meneghini\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Former Cuban President Raul Castro has been indicted in the United States on murder charges, court records showed on Wednesday, in a major escalation in Washington\u2019s pressure campaign against the island\u2019s communist government.<\/p>\n

Cuba\u2019s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Castro, 94, last appeared in public in Cuba earlier this month, and there is no evidence that he has since left the island or that the government would allow him to be extradited. <\/p>\n

The indictment comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed for a regime change in Cuba, where Castro\u2019s communists have been in charge since his late brother Fidel Castro led a revolution in 1959. <\/p>\n

The details of the charges were not immediately available. A U.S. Justice Department official told Reuters last week on the condition of anonymity that the charges against him were expected to be based on a 1996 incident in which Cuban jets shot down planes operated by a group of Cuban exiles. <\/p>\n

Trump in a statement earlier on Wednesday called Cuba a \u201crogue state harboring hostile foreign military\u201d and framed his administration\u2019s actions regarding the Caribbean island as part of a broader effort to expand U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the shores of Havana to the banks of the Panama Canal, we will drive out the forces of lawlessness and crime and foreign encroachment,\u201d Trump said at a Coast Guard Academy event in New London, Connecticut. <\/p>\n

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Monday that the island does not represent a threat.<\/p>\n

The indictment marks a new low in relations between the longtime Cold War rivals. <\/p>\n

After taking power, Fidel Castro struck an alliance with the Soviet Union, then seized U.S.-owned businesses and properties. The U.S. has since maintained an economic embargo on the nation of about 10 million. <\/p>\n

The two sides have talked intermittently over the years. Diplomatic relations briefly improved during former Democratic President Barack Obama\u2019s second term, but Trump, a Republican, has taken a harder line.<\/p>\n

The Miami U.S. Attorney\u2019s office was planning to host an event starting at 1 p.m. EDT to honor victims of the 1996 incident. The Justice Department said on Tuesday it would make an announcement in conjunction with the ceremony, but did not provide details about the announcement. <\/p>\n

Members of Miami\u2019s large Cuban-American community gathered outside the city\u2019s freedom tower, where the ceremony is due to take place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all hoped for a long time, for many years that this would happen,\u201d said Bobby Ramirez, a 62-year-old musician who left Cuba in 1971 when he was 7 years old. <\/p>\n

The ceremony is due to take place on the anniversary of the end of a four-year U.S. military occupation of Cuba on May 20, 1902, which itself followed centuries of Spanish colonial rule. Cuba\u2019s government does not consider the date to mark the country\u2019s independence day, arguing that it remained subservient to Washington until the 1959 revolution. <\/p>\n

In a post on X, Diaz-Canel said that in Cuban history, May 20 signified \u201cintervention, interference, dispossession, frustration.\u201d <\/p>\n

Under Trump, the U.S. has effectively imposed a blockade on Cuba by threatening sanctions on countries supplying it with fuel, triggering power outages and exacerbating its worst crisis in decades.<\/p>\n

In a video message addressed to the Cuban people on Wednesday morning, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents were Cuban immigrants to the United States, offered to forge a new relationship between the two countries. He said the U.S. could provide US$100-million in aid, and blamed Cuba\u2019s leaders for shortages of electricity, food and fuel.<\/p>\n

In response, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez called Rubio \u201cthe mouthpiece of corrupt and vengeful interests\u201d but did not rule out accepting the aid. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe keeps talking about an aid package of 100-million dollars that Cuba has not rejected, but whose cynicism is evident to anyone in light of the devastating effect of the economic blockade and the energy stranglehold,\u201d Rodriguez wrote in a post on X. <\/p>\n

Cuba has yet to comment directly on the criminal case against Raul Castro.<\/p>\n

Born in 1931, Raul Castro was a key figure alongside his older brother in the guerrilla war that toppled U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. <\/p>\n

He helped defeat the U.S.-organized Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and served as defense minister for decades. He succeeded his brother as president in 2008 and stepped down in 2018, but remains a powerful behind-the-scenes figure in Cuban politics.<\/p>\n

He was defense minister at the time of the 1996 incident. <\/p>\n

The two small planes that were shot down were being flown by Brothers to the Rescue, a group of Miami-based Cuban exile pilots who said their mission was to search for Cuban rafters fleeing the island. All four men aboard were killed. <\/p>\n

The Cuban government has argued the strike was a legitimate response to the planes intruding on Cuban airspace. Fidel Castro said Cuba\u2019s military had acted on \u201cstanding orders\u201d to down planes entering Cuban airspace. He said Raul Castro did not give a specific order to shoot the planes.<\/p>\n

The U.S. condemned the attack and imposed sanctions, but did not pursue criminal charges against either Castro brother. The Justice Department charged three Cuban military officers in 2003 but they were never extradited. <\/p>\n

The International Civil Aviation Organization later concluded the shootdown took place over international waters.<\/p>\n

The filing of the criminal case against a U.S. adversary like Castro recalls the earlier drug-trafficking indictment of imprisoned former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, an ally of Havana\u2019s. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration cited that indictment as a justification for the January 3 raid on Caracas by the U.S. military in which Maduro was captured and brought to New York to face the charges. He has pleaded not guilty. <\/p>\n

Trump in March threatened that Cuba \u201cis next\u201d after Venezuela. Diaz-Canel said on Monday that any U.S. military action against Cuba would lead to a \u201cbloodbath.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Cuba’s former president Ra\u00fal Castro stepped down from the presidency in 2018 but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-682485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}