BREAKING: DOJ Indicts Former Cuban Dictator Raul Castro

It’s never too late for justice!

In a huge move, the DOJ has formally indicted 94-year-old former Cuban dictator Raul Castro for murder.

The charges center around the Cuban military’s 1996 downing of two U.S. civilian planes, ordered by Castro.

Four innocent people who were trying to deliver aid were killed after the planes were shot down.

Thanks to the Trump DOJ, the families who lost their loved ones in the shootdown thirty years ago will finally get closure.

Check it out:

🚨BREAKING: Former Cuban president Raul Castro has been indicted by the U.S. Justice Department pic.twitter.com/Qnwcp8IAMX

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 20, 2026

Along with Raul Castro, five other individuals were named in the indictment.

CBS News reported:

Former Cuban leader Raúl Castro and five others have been indicted by a U.S. grand jury in Florida in connection with the Cuban military’s fatal downing of two planes 30 years ago, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

The federal criminal charges against the 94-year-old Castro — brother of the late Fidel Castro and widely seen as one of Cuba’s most powerful figures — mark an escalation in the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the Cuban government. Castro served as president of Cuba from 2008 to 2018 and as the top official of the country’s Communist Party from 2011 to 2021.

CBS News was first to report that the U.S. was preparing to indict Castro.

Castro was indicted in Miami on April 23 with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destruction of aircraft, according to court papers released Wednesday. The charges focus on the Cuban air force’s decision to shoot down two civilian planes flown by Florida-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue in February 1996, killing four people. The indictment says the planes were outside of Cuban airspace at the time of the shootdown.

The other five named defendants are identified as Cuban fighter pilots, including one who was initially charged in connection with the shootdown more than two decades ago.

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Acting AG Todd Blanche announced the indictment during a press conference in Florida.

Watch what he had to say here:

Backup here if needed:

🚨 JUST IN — IT'S OFFICIAL: A grand jury in Florida has INDICTED former Cuban dictator Raul Castro, the brother of Fidel Castro with conspiracy to KlLL US NATIONALS, murder, and more, per Acting AG Blanche

This is related to his role in the 1995 shootdown of two civilian planes… pic.twitter.com/t3xmw97lrO

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 20, 2026

JUST IN — IT’S OFFICIAL: A grand jury in Florida has INDICTED former Cuban dictator Raul Castro, the brother of Fidel Castro with conspiracy to KlLL US NATIONALS, murder, and more, per Acting AG Blanche

This is related to his role in the 1995 shootdown of two civilian planes over the Florida Straits, kiIIing two Americans.

“These were HUMANITARIAN flights for the rescue and protection of those fleeing oppression,” per Blanche

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Raul is 94 years old. We’ll see how DOJ decides to handle this.

It’s very possible that Raul Castro will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Watch the DOJ read off the charges here:

🚨 JUST IN: Former Cuban leader Raul Castro, 94, could face the DEATH PENALTY or LIFE in prison after being indicted for killing American citizens

"Count one, conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals facing a maximum term imprisonment of life imprisonment."

"Counts two and three, five… pic.twitter.com/Eiha8fDf58

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 20, 2026

JUST IN: Former Cuban leader Raul Castro, 94, could face the DEATH PENALTY or LIFE in prison after being indicted for killing American citizens

“Count one, conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals facing a maximum term imprisonment of life imprisonment.”

“Counts two and three, five years in prison.”

“And counts four through seven, the charges of murder facing a maximum term of imprisonment on each count of DEATH or life imprisonment.” @SenAshleyMoody

FAFO 🔥

This could be just the beginning of the U.S. moving to free Cuba…

Shortly before the DOJ’s indictment of Raul Castro, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a message to the people of Cuba telling them that President Trump is offering “a new path.”

Watch it here:

OH SHIZZLES…

🚨 BREAKING: The DOJ just indicted former Cuban president Raul Castro

And Marco Rubio just sent a message Directly to the People of Cuba 🇨🇺

In a nutshell… “People of Cuba… the reason you don’t have food, water, and electricity is because those who control you… pic.twitter.com/ImEbPHhvik

— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) May 20, 2026

OH SHIZZLES…

🚨 BREAKING: The DOJ just indicted former Cuban president Raul Castro

And Marco Rubio just sent a message Directly to the People of Cuba 🇨🇺

In a nutshell… “People of Cuba… the reason you don’t have food, water, and electricity is because those who control you have plundered billions of your dollars — GAESA controls you, and you are slaves — The Trump administration is offering you a new path… and wants you to live in a free and sovereign country.”

The timing of all this is quite significant, as well.

Today is May 20th.  On this day in 1902, the U.S. ended its military occupation of Cuba.

Cubans celebrated it as a day of independence, up until the communist government took over in the late 1950s.

The New York Times explained the significance further:

In a short video addressed to Cubans on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that President Trump was offering them “a new path.”

Hours later, the Justice Department indicted Cuba’s former president, Raúl Castro, for having given orders to shoot down two small civilian planes in 1996. The indictment was part of a multipronged U.S. strategy to topple Cuba’s communist government, which has included threats from Mr. Trump that he will “take” the country.

But the latest U.S. pressure campaign against Cuba, including its attempts to control who leads the country, reflects a dynamic that is more than a century old. And the U.S. government’s decision to indict Mr. Castro on May 20 carries particular significance.

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Whizzco

On May 20, 1902, the U.S. formally ended its military occupation of Cuba, which it had maintained in the years after a rout of Spanish colonial forces by a combination of U.S. troops and Cuban guerrillas who had been fighting an independence war for three decades. While other Spanish colonies like Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines became U.S. possessions, Cuba was granted independence.

Many Cubans “celebrated their independence to the tilt” at the time, said Michael Bustamante, who directs the Cuban American studies program at the University of Miami. “But it came with a big asterisk.”

There was more than one asterisk. The biggest was the Platt Amendment, which “basically authorized the United States to intervene in Cuban affairs going forward,” Dr. Bustamante said. Cuba was essentially forced to accept those terms or allow the U.S. military occupation to continue. During that era, U.S. business interests, particularly in sugar, began buying large plantations on the island.

Another asterisk was the granting of a perpetual lease over a strategic port in Cuba’s southeast that became Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

The terms on which the U.S. lifted its military occupation “gave the United States many of the benefits of colonization without the responsibility,” Daniel Immerwahr, a historian at Northwestern University who studies U.S. colonialism, wrote in his book “How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States.”

Before the Platt Amendment was repealed in 1934, the U.S. would militarily occupy Cuba twice more, stepping in largely to protect its economic interests. The amendment helped destabilize Cuba, Dr. Bustamante said, because landowners would drum up unrest to precipitate U.S. intervention and the replacement of democratically elected leaders they opposed.

The communist government that came to power in Cuba’s 1959 revolution eventually abandoned May 20 as an official independence day. The White House, in a statement on Wednesday commemorating Cuban independence, said that the current government represented a “direct betrayal of the nation their founding patriots bled and died for.”

The choice of May 20 would resonate for most Cubans, said Dr. Bustamante.

“In the context of broader foreign policy worldview where the Trump administration is pushing to reassert U.S. dominance — their words not mine — in the Western Hemisphere,” he said, “they are hearkening back to this moment when the U.S. did treat Cuba as its backyard.”