Raul Castro arrest warrant: a Miami judge has signed a Florida state arrest warrant for former Cuban president Raul Castro over the 1996 shootdown of two civilian planes that killed four people.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan signed the warrant after investigators presented evidence that Cuban spies infiltrated the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue and relayed flight information to Havana before the February 24, 1996 attack. According to the affidavit, obtained by the Miami Herald, the spy network instructed its informants not to fly with the group in the days around the shootdown, and one agent left Florida for Cuba the day before.
Cuban fighter jets intercepted two Cessna 337 aircraft over the Florida Straits, killing Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa and Mario de la Pena, all US citizens, and Pablo Morales, a legal US resident. Their bodies were never recovered.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the warrant Monday at Florida International University. The state case is separate from a May 2026 federal indictment charging Castro and five other former Cuban military officers with murder, destruction of aircraft and conspiracy to kill US nationals. Only one defendant, former lieutenant colonel Luis Raul Gonzalez-Pardo Rodriguez, is in US custody, extradited to Miami in June, where he pleaded not guilty.
Castro, now 95, was Cuba's defense minister in 1996. Cuba claims the planes were in its airspace; the United States and the International Civil Aviation Organization concluded they were over international waters. The warrant is largely symbolic, since Havana does not extradite former leaders, but prosecutors say the conspiracy was planned on American soil.
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