Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier revealed on Monday that a judge in the state had issued an arrest warrant for Raúl Castro, the 95-year-old dictator of Cuba, on conspiracy to commit murder charges.
Law enforcement officials confirmed the warrant was signed by Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan on Friday, allowing police to arrest Castro if given the opportunity. As Castro is believed to reside in Havana and rarely makes public appearances even in his own country, an imminent arrest is unlikely, but the warrant has a chilling effect on Castro’s travel opportunities as it creates the chance for a third-party country to extradite him.
Castro is the longtime dictator of Cuba, having succeeded his elder brother Fidel after the latter’s announced death in 2016. Raúl, who for much of his life served as the executioner and “dirty deeds” sidekick for his brother, announced his alleged “retirement” in 2018, but no evidence suggests that he ever conceded any power to figurehead “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel or his various cronies. Daughter Mariela Castro confirmed as recently as this summer, for example, that Raúl was directly involved in reported conversations with the government of the United States.
Castro is facing arrest for his role in ordering the murder of four Americans on February 24, 1996, when he was acting as the leader of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR). Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales were volunteering for a humanitarian organization known as Brothers to the Rescue, flying their planes over international waters looking for wayward refugees attempting to reach Florida from Cuba by sea, when the Cuban military shot down their planes, killing them. There is no evidence that their planes posed any threat to Cuba and they did not enter Cuban airspace. They reportedly received no warnings from the Cuban military before being shot down.
Subsequent evidence indicated that the Castro regime was aware of their location through a spy network known as the “Cuban Five” which had infiltrated the Cuban exile community in Florida to feed intelligence about active anti-communist dissidents in the United States. Only one person was imprisoned in relation to the crime: spy Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, whom President Barack Obama freed in 2014 as a gesture of friendliness to the regime.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Florida officials asserted that Castro planned the killings of the Americans and the government has obtained sufficient evidence to process the accusation.
“Raúl Castro ordered the murder of four Floridians in cold blood, and Florida will never stop pursuing accountability for that communist conspiracy,” Attorney General Uthmeier told the audience assembled for the press conference at Florida International University. “The Castro regime’s spies operated in our communities, fed intelligence to Havana, and helped put civilian pilots in the crosshairs of Cuban MiGs. Thirty years later, we are still fighting for justice for Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Peña, and Armando Alejandre Jr.”
Uthmeier’s office described Raúl Castro as a “final decision-maker” in the deaths of the four Americans. It quoted Castro as being caught stating, “Fine, shoot them down at sea when they show up, and those who have the authority are not to consult anyone.” The quote appears to be taken from audio first surfacing in public in 2006 revealing Castro issuing the order; some reports indicated that President Bill Clinton had access to this evidence but chose not to act for justice for the Americans.
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones, present at the press conference, applauded the work of Florida law enforcement and offered the support of the administration of President Donald Trump.
“Under President Trump’s administration, we’re committed to pursuing every lawful, prosecutable avenue to bring accountability, including parallel federal and state prosecutions,” Quiñones was quoted as saying. “We’re proud to stand with Florida in seeking justice for the four Americans murdered in the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown nearly 30 years ago.”
The federal government indicted Castro on charges stemming from the Brothers to the Rescue murders on May 20, Cuba’s Independence Day — celebrations of which the Castro regime typically represses. That indictment also included charges against several Cuban FAR members for their active role in the killings.
The Cuban Communist Party responded to the warrant for its leader on Monday by dismissing it as a “circus” and “repudiable” action. Díaz-Canel took the lead in responding by publishing a statement on social media, which the state newspaper Granma reproduced.
“The repudiable action against the general of the military this morning in a pathetic Miami circus, with an electoral background, does not, nor will it ever, make the slightest judicial and much less practical sense,” Díaz-Canel wrote. “Raúl is Raúl, and before every affront against his figure they will always find the determination of a people to defend the Revolution.”
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez also weighed in, accusing the United States of “collective punishment against our people.” The warrant, he claimed, “was a reflection of the political poverty and moral collapse with which a group of parasites lie and scam their followers so they they continue to contribute with collections and financing,” an apparent barb against humanitarian groups in the United States.
Raúl Castro has not publicly commented on the warrant at press time.
