U.S. Justice piles murder charges on Cuba's former leader

Courts in the U.S. state of Florida compounded on 19 October homicide charges filed in May 2026 against the former Cuban leader Raúl Castro over the 1996 downing of unarmed planes flying from Florida to Cuba. Castro, brother of the late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and the country's vice-president and minister of defence at the time, was charged with murder in late May for allegedly ordering shot down two, unarmed planes flying out to aid Cubans trying to flee the communist-run island. The planes, owned by Cuban-American exiles, were downed outside Cuban territorial waters, apparently without any warning, which killed four U.S. citizens on board, according to the Associated Press. The agency reported that Castro would further face the charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder as prosecutors allege Cuban spies working in Florida had informed island authorities of the planes' flight plans. Cuba's President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the charges a "pathetic Miami circus" meant to ramp up pressures on the regime ahead of possible actions akin to the United States' earlier move to nab the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.