Cuba's president responds to US indictment of former Cuban President Raul Castro

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Wednesday responded to the indictment of former president and revolutionary leader Raul Castro by President Donald Trump over the killing of three US citizens in 1996.

The US Department of Justice announced a superseding indictment charging Castro with the murder of four people, including three US citizens. Fidel Castro's younger brother and successor is accused of participating in the shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft on Feb. 24, 1996.

The charges were unveiled at a critical moment amid escalating economic aggression and military threats carried out by the US government against Cuba, which has ultimately left the island without sufficient fuel supplies.

"This is a political maneuver, devoid of any legal foundation, aimed solely at padding the fabricated dossier they use to justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba.

"The U.S. lies and distorts the events surrounding the downing of the planes belonging to the narco-terrorist organization Brothers to the Rescue in 1996," President Miguel Diaz-Canel said through his account on the US social media company X.

According to the case built by US authorities, the Cuban government fired on the aircraft while they were carrying out a humanitarian mission in Cuban waters.

However, the Cuban government has maintained ever since that the actions were legitimate and intended to safeguard Cuban airspace. It has also been argued that Brothers to the Rescue founder Jose Basulto was an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and part of an anti-Castro group involved in various acts of violence in Cuba.

"It knows full well—given the abundance of documentary evidence—that no imprudent action was taken nor was international law violated, as U.S. military forces have indeed been doing with their coldly calculated and openly publicized extrajudicial executions against civilian vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific," Diaz-Canel said.

The indictment against the 94-year-old Castro comes during the anniversary of the US protectorate established under the Platt Amendment, which the US government and the Cuban diaspora in North America describe as Cuban Independence Day.

To commemorate the date, the Trump administration released a statement claiming that over the past seven decades the Cuban government has strangled the country's economy and repressed its people, pushing the state toward collapse.

On social media, Diaz-Canel criticized Trump's message, arguing that it dismissed the economic sanctions imposed on the island and its people since the 1960s.

"Only deeply twisted minds could deny before the world the collective punishment imposed on an entire people, which is increasingly becoming an act of genocide," the president said.

He also referred to the Jan. 29, 2026, executive order that imposes tariffs on any country supplying oil to the island, a measure that has resulted in a historic energy crisis in Cuba.

"It has long been the practice of that empire to wage wars and exterminate peoples on the basis of lies. Actions, not words, are the response Cuba and the world demand. Lift the blockade, and then we will see what happens," he said.