{"id":210806,"date":"2026-05-16T03:01:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T03:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/doj-pushing-to-indict-raul-castro-over-1996-downing-of-civilian-planes-officials-say-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T03:01:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T03:01:52","slug":"doj-pushing-to-indict-raul-castro-over-1996-downing-of-civilian-planes-officials-say-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/doj-pushing-to-indict-raul-castro-over-1996-downing-of-civilian-planes-officials-say-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ pushing to indict Ra\u00fal Castro over 1996 downing of civilian planes, officials say – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Justice Department is pushing to indict 94-year-old Ra\u00fal Castro, the former president of Cuba, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
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The potential criminal charges concern two civilian planes on a volunteer mission that were downed by Cuba in 1996, killing four Cuban Americans, one of the officials said.
The case must go before a grand jury which decides whether to indict Castro. Charges were expected to be revealed during a public event in Miami on May 20th, which is considered Cuban independence day, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The law enforcement effort against Castro, the brother of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, was part of a wider campaign by the Trump administration designed to force the regime to bow to U.S. demands, including through drastic economic sanctions and threats of potential military action.
President Donald Trump\u2019s <\/a>frustrations are growing over the Cuban government\u2019s stubborn grip on power despite months of sustained U.S. pressure.<\/a>
It also bears some resemblance to the approach used against another Latin American nation, Venezuela, also at odds with Washington.
In January, Trump ordered a U.S. military operation that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President <\/a>Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were flown to the United States to face drug trafficking and other charges in federal court. (Both have pleaded not guilty.) The Trump administration cited the criminal charges against Maduro as the justification for his capture and transfer to a U.S. prison.
NBC News reached out to Cuba\u2019s foreign ministry in Havana and the island\u2019s embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment and did not immediately hear back.
Economic conditions have grown steadily worse since the Trump administration\u2019s monthslong blockade of oil shipments. Cuba is suffering a massive energy crisis with fuel shortages and blackouts.
Still, the Cuban regime has shown little sign of ceding power or offering major concessions as Washington demands.
Trump, on Air Force One back from a China trip Friday, said the Castro investigation was a question for the Justice Department.
\u201cYou talk about a declining country, they are really a nation or a country in decline,\u201d Trump said. \u201cSo we\u2019re going to see.\u201d
The president has kept up a drumbeat of threats against Cuba, suggesting earlier this month that an aircraft carrier returning from the Middle East might make a detour to the island. The warship could \u201ccome in, stop about 100 yards offshore, and they\u2019ll say: \u2018Thank you very much. We give up,\u2019\u201d Trump said.
Senior Trump administration officials have stepped up their efforts in recent weeks to pressure Havana.
The State Department announced new hard-hitting sanctions on Cuba earlier this month, penalizing foreign firms doing business with Havana. But officials also offered Cuba $100 million in humanitarian assistance if the regime would agree to \u201cmeaningful\u201d reforms.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who typically keeps his international travel confidential, made a high-profile trip to Havana <\/a>on Thursday, holding a meeting with Cuban officials<\/a> as he delivered a stern warning demanding dramatic changes without delay, according to a CIA official and a statement from the Cuban government.
\u201cDirector Ratcliffe traveled to Havana to initiate substantive discussions on the essential steps the Cuban regime must do to build a productive relationship with the United States,\u201d a CIA official said in an email Thursday.
The director made clear that time was short and Cuba needed to act, suggesting that if the regime dragged its feet, it might face the same fate as the government in Venezuela, according to the CIA official.
Ratcliffe \u201cemphasized that the U.S. is extending a genuine opportunity for collaboration, and — as evidenced by Venezuela — President Trump must be taken seriously,\u201d the official said.
The spy agency director also repeated the demand from Washington that Cuba stop accommodating adversaries; U.S. officials have long maintained that Moscow and Beijing use the island 90 miles off Florida\u2019s coast to conduct espionage directed against the United States.
Ratcliffe told his Cuban counterparts that Havana \u201ccan no longer serve as a platform for adversaries to advance hostile agendas in our hemisphere.\u201d
Cuba was designated a \u201cstate sponsor of terrorism,\u201d accused of harboring Colombian rebel groups and U.S. fugitives, a status reinstated last year by Trump. It reversed a short-lived move<\/a> by the Biden administration.
According to a statement from Havana, Cuba provided information to the U.S. that \u201cmade it possible to categorically demonstrate that Cuba does not constitute a threat to U.S. national security, nor are there legitimate reasons to include it on the list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism.\u201d
The Trump administration began exploring earlier this year whether the Justice Department could charge members of the regime or the Communist Party with crimes, NBC News had reported. The multi-agency effort was being led by the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
The possible charges were first reported by CBS News.<\/a>
The 1996 downing of the planes remains one of the most politically charged episodes in modern U.S.-Cuba relations.
The volunteers routinely flew over the Florida Straits looking for Cuban refugees making their way to the U.S. on makeshift boats.
Fidel Castro, who was president at the time, claimed that the planes violated Cuban airspace and that they were downed as a defense against \u201cterrorist threats.\u201d Ra\u00fal Castro was head of the armed forces at the time.
Congress later found that the pilots<\/a> \u201cwere flying unarmed and defenseless planes in a mission identical to hundreds they have flown since 1991 and posed no threat whatsoever to the Cuban Government, the Cuban military, or the Cuban people.\u201d
The case has remained a sore point. Cuban American members of Congress wrote a letter to Trump in February<\/a> asking the Justice Department to consider indicting Ra\u00fal Castro in the shooting of the planes.
Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News.
Gabe Gutierrez is a senior White House correspondent for NBC News.
Chief Justice and National Affairs Correspondent
Dan De Luce\u00a0is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.\u00a0
Abigail Williams is a producer and reporter for NBC News covering the State Department.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeThe Justice Department is pushing to indict 94-year-old Ra\u00fal Castro, the former president of Cuba, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.The potential criminal charges concern two civilian planes on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210807,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-210806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}