Obama and Raúl Castro baseball.jpg
The Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging former Cuban President Raúl Castro with murder on Wednesday. This move coincides with the country’s Independence Day and a threat from President Trump to invade the island.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche traveled to join prosecutors in South Florida to announce the indictment “in conjunction with a ceremony to honor the victims of the Brothers to the Rescue.”
Unsurprisingly, NBC News is skeptical:
Disney’s ABC News was, unsurprisingly, very skeptical of the Justice Department’s indictment of Raul Castro and five others in the murders of four men from the Brothers to the Rescue in 1996 pic.twitter.com/TjEbvoOUeb
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 20, 2026
Four men were killed in 1996 when their planes, searching for people potentially seeking to leave the island and reach Florida’s shores. They were shot down by the Cuban military, which Castro led at the time.
“For the first time in nearly 70 years, senior leadership of the Cuban regime has been charged in this country, in the United States of America, for acts of violence resulting in the deaths of American citizens,” Blanche said Wednesday.
“Nations and their leaders cannot be permitted to target Americans, kill them, and not face accountability.”
HUGE: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announces the indictment of former Cuban President Raul Castro pic.twitter.com/lLN5ad3xx1
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 20, 2026
Castro, 94, stepped down as president in 2018, but the U.S. considers him still the effective leader of the country.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel bashed the indictment as adding to the pretext to invade Cuba.
“This is a political maneuver, devoid of any legal foundation, aimed solely at padding the fabricated dossier they use to justify the folly of a military aggression against #Cuba,” he wrote on the social platform X.
I think the U.S. will go in and get him.
Belated justice for a mass murderer? The powerful interview:
POWERFUL: NBC’s Tom @LlamasNBC interviews Miriam de la Pena, the mother of Mario de la Pena, one of the Americans killed in the deadly 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown by the Cuban military, about her emotions hearing the U.S. has indicted Raul Castro and five others in her… pic.twitter.com/9V4OuIBOB9
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 20, 2026
President Trump addresses the indictment:
POWERFUL: NBC’s Tom @LlamasNBC interviews Miriam de la Pena, the mother of Mario de la Pena, one of the Americans killed in the deadly 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown by the Cuban military, about her emotions hearing the U.S. has indicted Raul Castro and five others in her… pic.twitter.com/9V4OuIBOB9
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 20, 2026