October 19, 2026

Florida Issues No-Bond Arrest Warrant for Raúl Castro Over 1996 Brothers to the Rescue Shootdown

By The Night Desk

Headline card by The Night Desk

Florida Issues No-Bond Arrest Warrant for Raúl Castro Over 1996 Brothers to the Rescue Shootdown

MIAMI — Florida has obtained a state arrest warrant for former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, 95, on a no-bond charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder stemming from the February 24, 1996 shootdown of two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue aircraft, according to a warrant obtained by Fox News Digital.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, whose office reopened the state's investigation after he took office, announced the warrant at a Monday press conference at Florida International University alongside Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The case behind the warrant

The no-bond warrant, issued in Miami-Dade County and authorized October 16 by Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan, head of Florida's Eleventh Judicial Circuit, directs law enforcement to immediately arrest Castro. A judge found probable cause to believe he conspired to commit first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of four men aboard the unarmed civilian aircraft — Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Peña, and Armando Alejandre Jr.

"The investigation revealed evidence of a conspiracy to kill persons aboard BTTR aircraft," the warrant reads.

According to the warrant, investigators allege the Castro regime's plan to shoot down the rescue group's aircraft traveled through the chain of command, with Raúl Castro and his brother, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, as the final decision-makers.

The spies on Florida soil

The warrant's jurisdictional grounds rest on what happened in Florida itself: two Cuban agents who infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue operated in Miami and at the Naval Air Station in Key West from 1995 through February 1996. Per the affidavit, those spies passed Cuban authorities information about the group's flights and monitored military facilities in the state.

The network instructed its infiltrators not to fly with the organization between February 24 and 27, 1996 — and one agent left Florida on February 23, one day before the attack, to return to Cuba. Authorities say that activity, conducted on Floridian soil, provides probable cause for state jurisdiction and supports the allegation that Castro orchestrated the conspiracy.

The document specifies that if Castro is detained outside Florida, state authorities are empowered to seek his full extradition.

A second front

The state warrant marks a new front in efforts to hold Castro accountable for the 1996 attack, which has long reverberated through South Florida's Cuban-American community. It operates independently of a separate federal indictment issued by the Department of Justice on May 20, 2026, charging Castro and five other former Cuban military officers with seven counts: four individual murders, two counts of aircraft destruction, and one count of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens. Since that date, Castro has been considered a fugitive from federal justice.

Raúl Castro is presumed innocent of these charges unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

Source: Fox News Digital. Corroborated by FOX 13 Tampa and WSVN (via CubaHeadlines).

Source: Fox News Digital — read the original report