TALLAHASSEE — A federal grand jury has indicted former Cuban military chief Raúl Castro for the 1996 murders of four Brothers to the Rescue volunteers whose unarmed civilian aircraft were shot down by Cuban fighter jets over international waters, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced alongside Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Deputy Director Christopher Raia and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Reding Quiñones.

“On February 24, 1996, Raúl Castro and his criminal gang murdered Americans and our fellow Floridians,” said Attorney General Uthmeier. “Upon taking office in 2025, I directed our Statewide Prosecutors to reopen a previously closed case file on Raúl Castro. Working hand-in-hand with United States Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones and his team at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, accountability starts here, in Florida, with this indictment.”

The four victims — Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales — were killed when MiG-29 fighter jets fired air-to-air missiles at two of three unarmed civilian aircraft that had departed Opa-Locka Airport in Miami-Dade County on February 24, 1996. The two destroyed aircraft were flying outside Cuban territory, traveling away from Cuba, and received no warning from the Cuban military despite contact with the Havana air traffic control tower. A third aircraft escaped after being pursued by Cuban jets.

According to the indictment, Castro, then Minister of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, authorized and oversaw the military chain of command that carried out the attack. The Communist Cuban regime deployed spies operating in at least the Eleventh and Sixteenth Judicial Circuits of Florida who provided the intelligence that put the Brothers to the Rescue pilots in the crosshairs of the MiG-29s.

The indictment will be prosecuted under the authority of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in partnership with the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution. The case marks a rare joint federal-state effort to hold a foreign head of state accountable for the killing of American citizens and Florida residents nearly three decades after the attack.

Uthmeier also used the occasion to honor Florida law enforcement, awarding the 2025 Attorney General’s Law Enforcement Officer of the Year to Detective Eva Solis of the Clay County Sheriff’s Office. “It is my honor to recognize Detective Solis as the 2025 Law Enforcement Officer of the Year, and Officer Cody Poppell as our inaugural Moment of Valor Honoree,” Uthmeier said. “Detective Solis is responsible for the rescue and recovery of four human trafficking victims, and Officer Poppell stepped into the line of fire to save countless lives at FSU.”

Detective Solis’s recognition stems from a child exploitation and human trafficking investigation that identified seven victims, rescued one child, recovered three victims and uncovered more than two million child sexual abuse material files after a citizen discovered a thumb drive locked in a safe at an abandoned storage unit. Florida State University Police Department Officer Cody Poppell received the inaugural Moment of Valor distinction for his response during the April 17, 2025, active assailant incident on the FSU campus, where he rode his motorcycle onto campus and fired multiple shots to end the threat. Eleven other officers from agencies including the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, Port St. Lucie Police Department, Hialeah Police Department, Manatee County Sheriff’s Office and Florida Highway Patrol were also nominated for the award.