Florida issues no-bond murder warrant for Raúl Castro

A Miami-Dade County judge signed a no-bond arrest warrant charging former Cuban President Raúl Castro with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder for his role in the 1996 shoot-down of two unarmed civilian planes that killed four American pilots. The warrant, obtained by Fox News Digital, directs law enforcement to immediately arrest the 95-year-old and authorizes full extradition if he is detained outside Florida.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier reopened the state investigation after taking office. He is scheduled to announce the warrant alongside Gov. Ron DeSantis at a Monday morning press conference. The attorney general’s Office of Statewide Prosecution will assume jurisdiction over the multi-circuit criminal conspiracy case against Castro.

Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Peña and Armando Alejandre Jr. died on Feb. 24, 1996, when Cuban fighter jets fired missiles at their aircraft. The men were flying for Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based group that searched for Cuban migrants stranded at sea and dropped pro-democracy leaflets over the island.

“The investigation revealed evidence of a conspiracy to kill persons aboard BTTR aircraft. The deaths of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Peña, and Armando Alejandre Jr. were the object of that conspiracy,” the warrant reads, according to Fox News Digital.

Investigators allege the order to destroy the planes moved through the foreign intelligence service’s chain of command, terminating with Raúl Castro and his brother, Fidel Castro, as final decision-makers.

Months after the attack, Raúl Castro recounted the instructions he gave senior military leaders in a recorded statement cited in the warrant. “They have violated the airspace, the waters of the Republic. I made it clear that this had to be decentralized if we wanted it to do its job, and five generals were given the authority,” he said. “I used to say: Try to shoot them down over our territory. But they would come into Havana and leave.”

He described the physics of an air-to-air missile strike over a populated area. “Of course, with a missile shot like that, plane against plane, what comes down is a ball of fire, and it is going to fall on top of the city. So I said: Fine, shoot them down at sea when they show up, and those who have the authority are not to consult anyone,” he added.

The state warrant follows a separate federal prosecution brought during the Trump administration over the same incident. Cuba has consistently rejected U.S. charges, maintaining that Brothers to the Rescue repeatedly violated its sovereignty and that the military acted in self-defense.

Federal prosecutors indicted Castro and three former Cuban military officials in 2023 under the Aircraft Sabotage Act, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison or death. The Justice Department unsealed those charges after a federal grand jury in Miami returned the indictment. None of the defendants have been arrested.

The 1996 shoot-down prompted Congress to pass the Helms-Burton Act weeks later, tightening the decades-long U.S. economic embargo against Cuba and codifying sanctions into law so they could not be lifted by executive action alone. The legislation fundamentally altered Washington-Havana relations for the next thirty years.