Justice Department to indict former Cuban President Raul Castro Wednesday, reports say

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to indict Raul Castro, the former president of Cuba, on criminal charges that date back roughly three decades. The indictment could come as soon as Wednesday, according to multiple media reports.

The Justice Department is set to make an announcement, along with a ceremony to honor the victims of the Brothers to the Rescue murders of 1996,  in Miami, Florida, at 1 p.m. ET. The announcement comes on May 20, a date marking Cuba’s independence, but the socialist government rejects that, saying true freedom began with the 1959 Revolution.

The expected charges include murder and destruction of an airplane, one of the people familiar with the matter said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case ahead of the announcement.

Any criminal charge against Castro, which would need to be approved by a grand jury, would dramatically escalate tensions with Havana and ramp up expectations of U.S. military action in Cuba like the one carried out in January in Venezuela to bring President Nicolàs Maduro to New York on drug trafficking charges.

There’s no indication Castro will be taken into U.S. custody anytime soon.

In 1996, Cuba shot down two Cessna planes operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue, killing four Cuban Americans. Castro was defense minister at the time. 

Shortly after the shootdown, Congress passed what became known as the Helms-Burton Act, which codified a U.S. trade embargo enacted in 1962 and made it far more complicated for successive U.S. presidents to engage with Cuba.

The shootdown was a watershed moment in decades of hostilities between the U.S. and Cuba. To date, the U.S. has convicted only a single person of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown. Gerardo Hernández, the leader of a Cuban espionage ring dismantled by the FBI in the 1990s, was sentenced to life in prison but was released by President Barack Obama during a prisoner swap in 2014 as part of an attempt to normalize relations with Cuba.

Two fighter jet pilots and their commanding officer have also been indicted but are outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement while living in Cuba.

Raul Castro, brother of the late Fidel Castro, took over as president from his ailing brother, in 2006, and then handed power to a handpicked loyalist, Miguel Díaz-Canel, in 2018.

While he largely has avoided the spotlight since retiring in 2021 as head of the Cuban Communist Party, he is widely believed to wield power behind the scenes, a fact underscored by the prominence of his grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who previously met secretly with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is urging the Cuban people to reject their current socialist government and demand a free-market economy with new leadership he says will chart a new course in relations with the United States.

In a video message released Wednesday, Rubio said there’s no reason the Cuban people cannot enjoy the same freedoms that others in the Caribbean have.

“This is not impossible,” he said in a Spanish-language post that was recorded Tuesday ahead of an expected indictment of former Cuban President Raul Castro by the Department of Justice.

“If owning your own business and having the right to vote is possible around Cuba, why is it not possible for you in Cuba?” Rubio asked.

“In the U.S., we are ready to open a new chapter in the relationship between our people and our countries,” he said. “And, currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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