{"id":659,"date":"2026-05-20T21:06:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacksonvillemovingnews.com\/?p=659"},"modified":"2026-05-20T21:06:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:06:00","slug":"life-in-prison-or-the-death-penalty-what-the-charges-filed-against-raul-castro-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jacksonvillemovingnews.com\/?p=659","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Life in prison or the death penalty’: What the charges filed against Ra\u00fal Castro mean"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

On May 20, the\u00a0U.S. Department of Justice\u00a0(DOJ) filed an indictment against former Cuban leader Ra\u00fal Castro, 94, for his alleged role in the 1996 shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft and the deaths of four pilots.<\/p>\n

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Castro, who at the time was Cuba\u2019s minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR)\u2014placing him at the top of the military chain of command that decided to bring down the planes\u2014faces charges of murder, conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, and destruction of aircraft in connection with the deaths of the four pilots 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

The indictment also includes other Cuban military officials allegedly involved, including Emilio Jos\u00e9 Palacio Blanco, Jos\u00e9 Fidel Gual Barzaga, Ra\u00fal Simanca C\u00e1rdenas, Luis Ra\u00fal Gonz\u00e1lez-Pardo Rodr\u00edguez and Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez.<\/p>\n

So what do the charges filed against Castro in the U.S. mean?<\/h2>\n

According to constitutional attorney Joseph Malouf, this is \u201cunder federal law an indictment that likely carries the possibility of life in prison or death under U.S. law.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this case, he said, \u201cbased on the process of presenting witnesses and evidence before a grand jury, the 12 members agreed there was enough for the case to move forward; (they) found that there was wrongdoing and a violation of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Could Castro face a scenario similar to Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s?<\/h2>\n

\u201cThey have several things in common, but there\u2019s an interesting difference: Castro is not Cuba\u2019s president, and Maduro claimed to be Venezuela\u2019s president, so there are certain defenses he\u2019s using that Ra\u00fal Castro won\u2019t be able to use,\u201d Malouf said.<\/p>\n

How difficult is it to build a case over something that happened 30 years ago?<\/h2>\n

\u201cThe level of proof needed to obtain this indictment is what\u2019s called \u2018probable cause\u2019 (meaning) there\u2019s a likelihood the person committed the crime,\u201d Malouf explained.<\/p>\n

But he noted that \u201cin general, that\u2019s easy to do at the beginning, but after 30, years you have witnesses who move away, who forget, evidence that wasn\u2019t collected or preserved properly. There are several things that can come up in the defense of such an old case.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was translated from English with the help of a generative AI tool. An NBC6 editor reviewed the translation.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Castro, who at the time was Cuba\u2019s minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR)\u2014placing him at the top of the military chain of command that decided to\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cuba"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Life in prison or the death penalty': What the charges filed against Ra\u00fal Castro mean - Jacksonville Moving News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jacksonvillemovingnews.com\/?p=659\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Life in prison or the death penalty': What the charges filed against Ra\u00fal Castro mean - 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