New Delhi: The US has indicted former Cuban president Raul Castro related to the 1996 shootdown of two planes–at a time when American President Donald Trump has threatened possible military action against the Communist government-led island.
The indictment – on charges of murder, conspiracy to kill American nationals and destruction of aircraft–brings a formal legal reckoning, however symbolic, to an incident that has frayed US-Cuba relations for nearly three decades.Announced by the US Department of Justice in Miami on 20 May, the indictment centres on the events of 24 February 1996, when Cuban MiG fighter jets fired air-to-air missiles at two unarmed Cessna aircraft over the Florida Straits, killing four men, three of them US citizens. The planes belonged to Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based Cuban exile organisation. US prosecutors allege that Castro, then Cuba’s defence minister, approved or directed the operation.
The Trump administration framed the charges as a pursuit of “justice” for American victims. But Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the case an attempt to justify further aggression against the island and his government said the charges have “no legal basis”.Castro, now 94 and living in Cuba, is unlikely to face extradition, but the indictment was being viewed by some as an escalation ahead of possible military action by the US, not unlike the one carried out in Venezuela.In January this year, American forces stormed Caracas and extracted Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, who is now facing drug-trafficking charges in New York.
