Politics
Florida adds state conspiracy charge in 1996 shootdown that killed four Miami fliers
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a state charge against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro over the deaths of four Brothers to the Rescue members. A Miami-Dade judge signed an arrest warrant, adding a state case to federal proceedings announced in May.
Florida has charged former Cuban President Raúl Castro with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in connection with the 1996 shooting down of two civilian aircraft that killed four men, Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Monday at Florida International University’s College of Law in Miami.
A Miami-Dade circuit judge signed a state arrest warrant for Castro, according to a report published before the news conference. The state case runs alongside a federal prosecution announced May 20 by U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida.
The deaths occurred Feb. 24, 1996, when Carlos Costa, 29, Armando Alejandre Jr., 45, Mario de la Peña, 24, and Pablo Morales, 29, were flying in two Cessna 337s associated with Brothers to the Rescue. The Miami-based Cuban-American nonprofit, founded in 1991, conducted missions to assist refugees at sea.
“It was not an accident what happened, it was murder,” Uthmeier said at the news conference. He described the aircraft as unarmed civilian planes on a mission to help people.
Reding Quiñones said he supported the state’s parallel prosecution. Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said pursuing accountability was important to the victims’ families, adding that it mattered for them to know their government had not given up.
The announcements advance efforts to pursue criminal accountability in Florida for the deaths, three decades after the shootdown. The charge is an allegation; the case must be resolved through the legal process.