Former Cuban president indicted by US over 1996 plane shootdown
Former Cuban president Raúl Castro has been indicted in the US on murder charges.
It relates to an incident in 1996 where four people were killed when Cuban military jets shot down two civilian planes over international waters.
Raúl Castro was the Defence Minister when the planes, being operated by a group of Cuban exiles called ‘Brothers to the Rescue’, were shot down.
US Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says it is the first time in more than 70 years that a senior Cuban leader has been charged over the deaths of American citizens.
US President Donald Trump has expressed support for the Acting Attorney General’s action.
“People have suffered very big … at levels that few people would understand,”
“I think the Cuban population of Miami and certainly beyond Miami, people that came here that were decimated, whose families were ruined, appreciate what the Attorney General just did.”
