US charges former Cuban president Raul Castro with murder as pressure builds

MIAMI – The United States on May 20 indicted Cuba’s former leader Raul Castro on murder charges, fuelling speculation that US President Donald Trump will try to topple the communist state.

The charges against the former president – who at 94 years old remains influential in Cuban politics – stem from the deadly 1996 downing of two civilian planes manned by anti-Castro pilots.

Castro is the younger brother of Fidel Castro, the late iconic US nemesis who led Cuba’s 1959 communist revolution.

“We expect that he will show up here by his own will or by another way and go to prison,” US Acting Attorney-General Todd Blanche told a news conference in Miami attended by cheering Cuban-Americans.

In addition to murder, Raul Castro has been charged with conspiracy to kill Americans and destruction of aircraft.

The US government previously seized on a domestic indictment to justify military action in January that toppled and seized then Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a staunch ally of Cuba.

Mr Trump hailed the indictment on May 20 as a “very big moment” but played down prospects of moving on Cuba, whose economy has been in deepening crisis for months amid a US oil blockade.

“There won’t be escalation. I don’t think there needs to be. Look, the place is falling apart. It’s a mess, and they sort of lost control,” he told reporters.

The Cuban government in a statement said that the 1996 shoot-down was “legitimate self-defence” against an airspace violation.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote on X that the charges carry no legal basis and “add to the file they are fabricating to justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba”.

Five other Cubans were also charged, including the air force pilots who shot down the planes.

Four people died in the 1996 downing of the planes, sending relations plummeting. Two decades later, Raul Castro joined then US President Barack Obama in an effort to reconcile.

Mr Trump reversed Mr Obama’s effort to improve relations and has been steadily tightening sanctions on the island, already under a US embargo almost continuously since the communist revolution.

‘New path’

Mr Trump has repeatedly signalled that the Cuban government could be next after Venezuela to fall, and earlier in May even said Washington would be “taking over” the Caribbean island, about 145km from Florida, “almost immediately”.

In a video message to the Cuban people in Spanish, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American, accused the Havana leadership of theft, corruption and oppression.

“President Trump is offering a new path between the US and a new Cuba,” Mr Rubio said.

“A new Cuba where you have a real opportunity to choose who governs your country and vote to replace them if they are not doing a good job.”

The US ousting of Maduro has hit Cuba hard, cutting off a supply of free Venezuelan oil to the island, which has been plunged into an economic crisis.

Mr Rubio has dangled an offer of US$100 million (S$128 million) in aid to Cuba if it takes steps to open up.

“Currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country,” Mr Rubio said.

The renewed focus on Cuba comes as Mr Trump struggles to end an unpopular war he launched on Iran, which has rebuffed his demands for concessions.

‘Pretext’ for war

Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned against war and urged Mr Trump to return to the Obama-era policy.

“Raul Castro should be held accountable for the murder of Americans over international waters. But this indictment looks less like a pursuit of justice and more like a pretext for escalation, potentially even an illegal invasion of Cuba,” Mr Meeks said.

Mr Trump has described his stance as a reward to Cuban-Americans who helped him win the electorally crucial state of Florida.

At the Versailles restaurant, a historic gathering point for Miami’s Cuban diaspora, Ms Francys Fabelo, a 67-year-old writer originally from Cuba, said the community has been waiting for charges against the Castros for decades.

“You don’t mess with President Trump,” she said.

“I think this is serious. We hope, the people of Cuba hope, that this is serious.” AFP