Russia condemns Florida arrest warrant for Raul Castro as “revenge”

MOSCOW: Russia’s Foreign Ministry has completely rejected and strongly condemned an arrest warrant issued in the US state of Florida against former Cuban president Raul Castro. Castro is 95 years old.

According to The Moscow Times, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced on Monday that a state judge had approved a warrant for Castro on a charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. In his statement, Uthmeier said Raul Castro had ordered the cold-blooded killing of four Floridians.

The charges relate to an incident on 24 February 1996, when Cuban military aircraft shot down two civilian planes belonging to the Miami-based group “Brothers to the Rescue”. The group’s work was to help people trying to leave Cuba by sea. Four people were killed in the incident. Raul Castro was Cuba’s defence minister at the time. He is the younger brother of the late leader Fidel Castro.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the warrant “wholly unacceptable” and deserving of “decisive condemnation”. The statement said that levelling a baseless and fabricated charge after more than 30 years looked like nothing but revenge by Miami’s anti-Cuba lobby. The ministry warned that Washington’s legal action against Cuba could cause wider instability in the region.

Before the warrant, in May, the Trump administration had filed a federal indictment against Castro over the same incident. It includes four counts of murder, and charges of destroying two aircraft and conspiring to kill US nationals. Five other people are also named. The Kremlin had then called the move “bordering on violence”. The Cuban government maintains that the 1996 incident was “legitimate defence” against a violation of its airspace. President Miguel Diaz-Canel has also said the federal indictment has no legal basis.

In recent months, Cuba has been facing fuel shortages and repeated power cuts, while President Donald Trump has increased pressure, including a ban on fuel imports. In March, Russia sent an oil tanker to Cuba in the name of humanitarian aid.