Florida prosecutors have obtained an arrest warrant charging former Cuban leader Raúl Castro with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the 1996 downing of two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft. According to the attorney general’s office, three unarmed Cessnas left Opa-Locka Airport on Feb. 24, 1996, and Cuban MiGs fired air-to-air missiles at two of them after they crossed the 24th parallel southbound. Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Peña and Armando Alejandre Jr. were killed. Investigators allege Castro, then Cuba’s minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and first vice president, was a final decisionmaker in the chain of command that authorized the attack, which Cuba called Operación Escorpión.
Chief Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan of the 11th Judicial Circuit signed the warrant and set no bond. The Office of Statewide Prosecution will handle the multi-circuit case, and the attorney general’s office says the investigation remains active with additional charges possible.
The case carries particular weight in Florida’s Cuban-American communities, from Miami to Tampa and down through Sarasota and Naples, where the four pilots’ names have been repeated at memorials for three decades. Whether a state warrant can reach a former foreign head of state remains an open legal and diplomatic question, but for the families involved, the charge itself is a milestone. Do you remember where you were when this story broke in 1996?
