WASHINGTON/MIAMI, May 20 (Reuters) - 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's pressure campaign against the island's communist government.
Cuba's 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.
The indictment against Raul Castro, filed in federal court in Miami, charges him with one count of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder, and two counts of destruction of aircraft, court records show. Five other people are also named as defendants in the case.
It comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed for a regime change in Cuba, where Castro's communists have been in charge since his late brother Fidel Castro led a revolution in 1959.
A U.S. Justice Department official told Reuters last week that the expected charges against Raul Castro were based on a 1996 incident in which Cuban jets shot down planes operated by a group of Cuban exiles.
Trump in a statement earlier on Wednesday called Cuba a "rogue state harboring hostile foreign military" and framed his administration's actions regarding the Caribbean island as part of a broader effort to expand U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.
"From the shores of Havana to the banks of the Panama Canal, we will drive out the forces of lawlessness and crime and foreign encroachment," Trump said at a Coast Guard Academy event in New London, Connecticut.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Monday that the island does not represent a threat.
The indictment marks a new low in relations between the longtime Cold War rivals.
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.
The two sides have talked intermittently over the years. Diplomatic relations briefly improved during former Democratic President Barack Obama's second term, but Trump, a Republican, has taken a harder line.
MIAMI CEREMONY
The Miami U.S. Attorney's office was planning to host an event on Wednesday to honor victims of the 1996 incident. Members of Miami's large Cuban American community gathered outside the city's freedom tower ahead of the ceremony.
"We all hoped for a long time, for many years that this would happen," said Bobby Ramirez, a 62-year-old musician who left Cuba in 1971 when he was 7 years old.
The ceremony is taking 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's government does not consider the date to mark the country's independence day, arguing that it remained subservient to Washington until the 1959 revolution.
In a post on X, Diaz-Canel said that in Cuban history, May 20 signified "intervention, interference, dispossession, frustration."
RUBIO OFFERS $100 MILLION IN AID
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.
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 $100 million in aid, and blamed Cuba's leaders for shortages of electricity, food and fuel.
In response, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez called Rubio "the mouthpiece of corrupt and vengeful interests" but did not rule out accepting the aid.
"He 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," Rodriguez wrote in a post on X.
Cuba has yet to comment directly on the criminal case against Raul Castro.
TRUMP HAS SAID CUBA 'IS NEXT'
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.
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.
He was defense minister at the time of the 1996 incident.
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.
The Cuban government has argued the strike was a legitimate response to the planes intruding on Cuban airspace. Fidel Castro said Cuba's military had acted on "standing orders" to down planes entering Cuban airspace. He said Raul Castro did not give a specific order to shoot the planes.
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.
The International Civil Aviation Organization later concluded the shootdown took place over international waters.
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's.
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.
Trump in March threatened that Cuba "is next" after Venezuela. Diaz-Canel said on Monday that any U.S. military action against Cuba would lead to a "bloodbath."
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