Florida issues arrest warrant for Cuba's Raul Castro

MIAMI: Florida's top prosecutor announced an arrest warrant Monday for former Cuban president Raul Castro under state murder charges that echo a federal indictment unveiled earlier this year.

Raul Castro, 95, is wanted on murder charges connected to the February 24, 1996, shooting down of two civilian aircraft from "Brothers to the Rescue," an organization assisting Cubans fleeing to Florida by sea.

"Raul Castro ordered the murder of four Floridians in cold blood, and Florida will never stop pursuing accountability for that communist conspiracy," Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a statement.

Castro, brother of the late revolutionary leader and US nemesis Fidel Castro, was indicted on federal charges related to the incident in May.

The move came as President Donald Trump's right-wing administration steadily ramped up economic, political and legal pressure on the Cuban communist government.

"We're committed to pursuing every lawful, prosecutable avenue to bring accountability, including parallel federal and state prosecutions," US Attorney Jason A. Reding Quinones said in a statement supporting Florida's action.

"We're proud to stand with Florida in seeking justice for the four Americans murdered in the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown nearly 30 years ago," the federal prosecutor said.

Trump previously seized on a US indictment to justify military action in January that toppled Venezuela's then-president Nicolas Maduro, a staunch ally of the Cuban authorities.

Current Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said the US federal indictment against Castro has "no legal basis" and was an attempt "to justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba."