MEXICO CITY (AP) — Federal authorities in the United States have charged former Cuban President Raúl Castro and five fighter pilots in the 1996 downing of small civilian planes operated by Miami-based exiles.
The indictment announced Wednesday emerged as the Trump administration continues its pressure campaign to topple the island's socialist government. The charges accuse Castro and the military pilots of conspiring to terrorize, intimidate and retaliate
against Cubans and the country's exile community by shooting down the aircraft flown by the Brothers to the Rescue group.
Castro, now 94, was defense minister when MiG fighters targeted the group's planes.
Authorities allege that Castro’s five co-conspirators, all part of the Cuban Revolutionary Air and Air Defense Force, engaged in training missions around February 1996 “to find, track, pursue and intercept" aircraft off the Cuban coast in anticipation of flights by Brothers to the Rescue.
The indictment states that they underwent training at Castro’s “command and with direction from” a co-conspirator who was not indicted.
Here is what is known about the five pilots, who were identified as Lt. Col. Lorenzo Alberto Pérez-Pérez, José Fidel Gual Barzaga, Lt. Col. Luis Raúl González-Pardo Rodríguez, Emilio José Palacio Blanco and Raúl Simanca Cárdenas.
The indictment alleges that Pérez-Pérez and a pilot who was not charged shot down two planes on Feb. 24, 1996, in international airspace, killing four Americans.
Pérez-Pérez told Cuban state television days after the shooting that he intercepted the first aircraft and warned it based on orders from controllers. He said the plane ignored his warnings.
“We tried to dissuade their crew members, but they continued to dangerously approach the Cuban coast, and then we received the order to interrupt the flight of the first aircraft,” Pérez-Pérez said at the time. “Afterward, we conducted the same operation with the second plane, which also refused to change its direction.”
Castro is accused in the indictment of authorizing the use of deadly force after Brothers to the Rescue flew planes that dropped pro-democracy leaflets over Cuba in January 1996. U.S. prosecutors said Castro and his older brother, Fidel Castro, who was president at the time, were the final decision-makers on orders to kill.
Pérez-Pérez was previously indicted in the U.S. in August 2003 and accused of murder, aircraft destruction and conspiracy.
The indictment alleges that on the same day of the deadly attacks, Gual Barzaga, Simanca Cárdenas and González-Pardo Rodríguez followed but did not destroy a third plane.
González-Pardo Rodríguez, 65, is the only defendant in U.S. custody. He was indicted in November for allegedly making false statements in an immigration document.
The U.S. Department of Justice at the time said that he falsely stated he never received any weapons or military training, never participated in any group that used weapons or threatened to use weapons, and never served in a military or police unit. In reality, prosecutors said, "he received such training and served in the Cuban military as part of the Air Defense Force.”
He is scheduled to be sentenced later this month after pleading guilty in February.
The five pilots and Castro face one count of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals. Castro and Pérez-Pérez were also indicted on counts of murder and destruction of aircraft.
Little is known about Gual Barzaga, Palacio Blanco and Simanca Cárdenas.
The indictment alleges that Pérez-Pérez and Palacio Blanco took off from the San Antonio de los Baños airfield, near Havana, in separate jets. Pérez-Pérez requested authorization to shoot down the civilian aircraft some 20 minutes later.
While Pérez-Pérez attacked the two planes, according to the indictment, Gual Barzaga and Simanca Cárdenas sat together in a third fighter jet, and González-Pardo Rodríguez was in a fourth one ready to deploy. Authorities allege the waiting pilots listened to Pérez-Pérez's radio requests for authorization to attack the planes, and they eventually joined him in the pursuit of the third civilian aircraft.
The federal indictment includes an undated photo of González-Pardo Rodríguez and Pérez-Pérez looking at a document next to a fighter jet.
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Associated Press writer Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.
