President Donald Trump said he doesn’t anticipate further “escalation” between the United States and Cuba after the Justice Department indicted the country’s former President Raúl Castro and five other Cuban nationals in connection with a thirty-year-old incident that resulted in the deaths of three Americans and a U.S. resident.
The United States charged Castro with conspiring to kill Americans in an attack against civilian pilots who were trying to rescue people fleeing Cuba on rafts, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced at a Wednesday news conference.
“If you kill Americans, we will pursue you, no matter who you are, no matter what title you hold, and in this case, no matter how much time has passed,” Blanche said.
The allegations date back to 1996, accusing Castro of ordering Cuban fighter jet pilots to shoot down two civilian planes that were working under a humanitarian group, Brothers to the Rescue. Four members of Brothers to the Rescue were killed.
The move comes amid increased apprehension about potential U.S. military action in Cuba, following Trump’s repeated threats against the island nation. USA TODAY exclusively reported in April that the Pentagon had ramped up its planning for a possible military operation.
The indictment also follows the Trump administration in January sending troops into Venezuela to capture then-President Nicolás Maduro after it secretly indicted the Latin American leader. Trump has since turned to Cuba, executing a monthslong pressure campaign on its government and the island’s elites through an oil blockade and targeted sanctions, in order to force a deal that could see economic conditions improve inside the country and political prisoners released.
Aysha Bagchi
In a statement posted by the Cuban embassy, Cuba’s government condemned “the despicable accusation” against Castro and declared “unrestricted and unchanging support” for him.
Officials argued in the statement that the downing of the two Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996 was an act of self defense after the organization repeatedly violated Cuban airspace “for hostile purposes,” and the Cuban government warned the United States of “possible consequences.”
Cuba’s government also said the charges were “highly cynical,” given the Trump administration has killed people and destroyed vessels in international water for alleged links to drug trafficking, without going through a judicial process.
“This spurious accusation against the Leader of the Cuban Revolution adds to the desperate attempts by anti-Cuban elements to construct a fraudulent narrative in an effort to justify the collective and ruthless punishment against the noble Cuban people,” the statement said.
Francesca Chambers
President Donald Trump told reporters traveling with him on Wednesday that the Justice Department’s indictment of Castro was a “very big moment” for Cuban Americans and the exile community.
Trump was returning from a trip to Connecticut, where he delivered the Coast Guard Academy’s commencement speech, when acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the charges.
“I think it’s a very big day, very important day,” Trump said.
Francesca Chambers
Asked by reporters on Wednesday if the American people should expect an “escalation” in tensions with Cuba now that Castro has been indicted, President Donald Trump said “there won’t be an escalation. I don’t think there needs to be.”
“Look, the place is falling apart. It’s a mess,” Trump said. “They’ve really lost control of Cuba.”
Trump declined to say whether he’d take military action to extract Castro from Cuba like his administration did in Venezuela earlier this year. The U.S. military carried out a surprise snatch-and-grab on its former leader Nicolás Maduro after bringing charges against him.
Nick Penzenstadler
One of the five pilots charged alongside Castro won’t be subject to an international manhunt: He’s already in U.S. custody awaiting sentencing in another case.
Luis Raul Gonzalez‑Pardo Rodriguez, 65, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in February for charges related to lying on his visa application. He’s due back in a Jacksonville, Florida, court later this month for sentencing.
Court documents allege the pilot submitted a B-2 tourist visa application in 2017 and answered “no” to whether he had ever served in the military. He admitted to federal agents in November 2025 to serving as a Cuban military pilot for decades and retired in 2009.
He’s now facing an additional count of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, which includes a maximum sentence of death or life imprisonment.
Chris Kenning
Raúl Castro, the former Cuban president indicted by U.S. prosecutors, spent decades under the shadow of his charismatic older brother Fidel Castro before emerging as Cuba’s top leader.
The brothers were both among the small group of revolutionaries who gathered in the Sierra Maestra mountains in 1956 before overthrowing the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista three years later.
Raul served decades as defense minister in a secondary role to the cigar-smoking “Comandante Maximo,” said Peter Kornbluh, a Cuba specialist with the National Security Archives.
In 2008, he succeeded Fidel Castro as president of Cuba, later also assuming leadership of the Communist Party in 2011. While some were skeptical he could take the reins from his brother, Raúl Castro coalesced military and economic power. By 2018, he stepped down as president, but experts said he retains significant sway within Cuba’s government.
Natalie Neysa Alund
Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez fired back at the Justice Department for indicting Castro on Wednesday, saying the country acted in self defense in the more than three-decade-old killings.
“This is a political maneuver, devoid of any legal foundation, aimed solely at padding the fabricated dossier they use to justify the folly of a military aggression against #Cuba,” Bermúdez wrote in a post on X.
“Cuba acted in legitimate self-defense within its jurisdictional waters, following repeated and dangerous violations of our airspace by notorious terrorists,” Bermúdez said.
Francesca Chambers
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a Florida news conference, where the charges against Castro were unveiled, that the the Department of Justice has “all kinds of different ways” to bring suspects to the United States to face charges.
“This isn’t a show indictment,” Blanche said. “There was a warrant issued for his arrest. So we expect that he will show up here by his own will or by another way.”
Blanche declined to say what other means the United States could employ, telling a reporter who asked about a possible military operation that those are decisions for Trump and other Cabinet officials such as Marco Rubio, the nation’s chief diplomat, and Pete Hegseth, the country’s Pentagon chief.
Aysha Bagchi
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that the U.S. government hasn’t forgotten the families and loved ones of the men killed in 1996.
“For nearly 30 years – 30 years – the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” he said.
Three of the four alleged victims were U.S. citizens, while all four were U.S. nationals, according to the indictment. Blanche characterized the charges as historic in the context of what have often been hostile relations between America and Cuba.
“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,” he said.
Aysha Bagchi
The charges against Castro come at a time of increasing tensions between the U.S. and Cuba.
Trump said in February that the Cuban government was talking with the U.S., but “maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba.” He said in March it may or may not be a friendly takeover, after the U.S. launched a war against the Iranian government.
In February, four Republican members of Congress, who were part of a news conference on Wednesday, told Trump in a letter that they admired his capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, on charges of conspiring to transport thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. In the same letter, they urged him to “consider indicting” Raúl Castro for the 1996 killings.
Even with charges, a U.S. military operation in Cuba would raise legal questions.
Aysha Bagchi
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in 1996 that the two planes, which took off from Florida, violated airspace over Cuban territorial waters. But the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization determined the planes were in international airspace and the attack was illegal.
Asked for comment ahead of the released indictment on the alleged role of the Cuban government, and Castro specifically, in downing the planes, Cuba’s embassy in Washington sent USA TODAY a social media post from Cuba’s top diplomat in the U.S., Lianys Torres Rivera.
Torres Rivera said there are documented communications showing that high-level officials in President Bill Clinton’s administration, which was in office in 1996, were concerned that repeated penetrations of Cuba’s airspace “would eventually lead to a crisis” if Cuba acted to protect its territorial integrity.
After the indictment was released, the embassy directed USA TODAY to a social media post from Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez. He said Cuba acted in legitimate self-defense within waters under its jurisdiction, after repeated violations of its airspace. He described Castro as a hero.
Aysha Bagchi
Natalie Neysa Alund
FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the indictment in a post on X on Wednesday and included the names of the four people killed in 1996.
“Carlos Costa. Armando Alejandro Jr. Mario de la Peña. Pablo Morales,” Patel wrote. “For 30 years, their families waited for answers. This FBI never forgot.”
Natalie Neysa Alund
U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican from New York, called for justice during Wednesday’s news conference, saying it’s been more than three decades since the killings took place.
“Today is a very serious day and it’s a day that we’ve been waiting for quite some time,” said Malliotakis, who has pushed for Castro to be indictedfor alleged human rights abuse and for allegedly harboring U.S. fugitives. “The people of Cuban descent, whether they are here or in Cuba or anywhere around the world, have been waiting for justice.”
“The reality is this is a communist regime that has brutally jailed, murdered, beaten its people,” said Malliotakis. “They have starved their people. They have stolen from their people and much of it was at the direction of Raúl Castro himself. And so today is about justice.”
Also during the news conference, U.S. Representative Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) called the Castro family “a group of gangsters” and said their reign of terror will soon end.
She also praised President Donald Trump “for initiative to think about the Western Hemisphere and especially about Cuba, because we know that Cuba is the epicenter of evil in this hemisphere…”
“The message is for the Castro family. Understand this well, that your days are over.”
Francesca Chambers
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Cuban people in a Spanish-language video, honoring the nation’s Independence Day, that the Trump administration is “offering a new relationship” with the United States and $100 million in humanitarian aid, but the communist-run country’s people must be the beneficiaries and not its elites.”President Trump is offering a new path between the U.S. and a new Cuba,” Rubio said, according to an English-language translation of the recording.
Rubio assailed the island’s military-run economic group, known as GAESA, which he recently sanctioned using authority granted to him by Trump in a recently issued executive order.
The nation’s elite depended on free oil from Venezuela, instead of using Cuba’s revenue to buy fuel and update its power plants, Rubio said. They meanwhile used the money to build hotels for foreigners in Cuba and send their relatives to live in luxury in cities like Madrid, he added.
“In the U.S. we are ready to open a new chapter in the relationship between our people and our countries,” Rubio, who’s Cuban-American declared. “And, currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country.”
Natalie Neysa Alund
During a Wednesday morning news conference on Capitol Hill, Florida Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart said Raúl Castro was the one who gave the order to kill the three Americans “in a premeditated cold-blooded fashion.”
“Since then, many of us and our community, (have) been asking for justice and sadly, time and time again, the United States for now decades has just looked the other way, which we think is unacceptable,” Diaz-Balart told reporters.
Francesca Chambers
President Donald Trump said Wednesday, in a presidential declaration honoring Cuba’s Independence Day, that his administration “will not rest” until free speech and fair elections are allowed to take place on the island.
“My commitment is ironclad: America will not tolerate a rogue state harboring hostile foreign military, intelligence and terror operations just ninety miles from the American homeland, and we will not rest until the people of Cuba once again have the freedom their forefathers fought so valiantly to establish over 100 years ago,” Trump wrote.
The declaration coincided with the May 20, 1902, end to the U.S. military occupation of the island. On that date, Cuba officially gained its independence from Spain.
“As President, I am taking decisive action on behalf of this long-suffering corner of our hemisphere, and to address threats to our national security emanating from the region,” Trump wrote in the declaration.
Aysha Bagchi
At the time of the 1996 incident, Raúl Castro was serving as head of Cuba’s armed forces. Ten years later, El Nuevo Herald, a Spanish-language newspaper in Florida, obtained audio that purported to show Raúl Castro describing to Cuban reporters how he planned with military officers to shoot down the planes, according to the Miami Herald, which is owned by El Nuevo Herald’s publisher.
Aysha Bagchi
Raúl Castro is the brother of the late Fidel Castro, who ran Cuba as a one-party Communist state for decades. Raúl succeeded Fidel as Cuba’s president in 2008, and as the leader of the Communist Party of Cuba in 2011. The 94-year-old stepped down from each of those roles years ago, but continues to serve in Cuba’s national assembly.