US ramps up pressure on Cuba with potential Castro indictment following visit by CIA chief

By Patrick Oppmann, Hira Humayun, Michael Rios, CNN

Havana, Cuba (CNN) — The US is ramping up pressure on Cuba’s government, preparing an indictment against former President Raúl Castro, according to sources, as Washington demands reforms from the Cuban government in exchange for humanitarian relief from an energy crisis it orchestrated.

News of the potential indictment comes after CIA Director John Ratcliffe led a US delegation to Havana to meet with Cuban government officials on Thursday, the latest US visit to the island grappling with a collapse of its energy sector amid spiraling relations with the US.

Tensions between the Cold War-era foes, already at their highest point in decades, appeared to increase following the CIA chief’s visit, with the news federal prosecutors have been examining possible charges against the 94-year-old former president, including some related to the Cuban military’s 1996 downing of two planes belonging to the Cuban-American exile organization Brothers to the Rescue.

Four Cuban-American lawmakers had called on the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in February to consider indicting Castro over the shootdown, which killed four people, three of them American citizens.

Should the indictment proceed, it would be one of the most significant moments in US-Cuban relations in recent years.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump declined to comment on the possible indictment. “I’ll let DOJ comment on it, but they (Cubans) need help, as you know,” he said.

Cuban officials have not commented on the matter, but US Congressman Carlos Giménez told CNN that the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida is expected to hold a press conference about the indictment on May 20, on Cuban Independence Day. He said the potential charges would be related to the Brothers to the Rescue incident.

“Brothers to the Rescue was an organization that would do flights over the Florida Straits in order to rescue those thousands of Cubans that were really throwing themselves into the sea and trying to make it across the Florida Straits for freedom,” he said.

When the shootdown took place, the organization had shifted from helping to locate rafters to flying into Cuban airspace to drop anti-government leaflets. The Cuban government complained to the then-Clinton administration about the flights before the 1996 incursion that lead to the downing of the two unarmed Cessna aircraft by the Cuban Air Force. At the time, Raúl Castro was the island’s defense minister.

News of the possible indictment followed the highly unusual meeting between officials from Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior and the head of the CIA – the same agency Cuba has long accused of sabotaging its revolution.

Havana said its officials stressed in the meeting that Cuba “does not constitute a threat to the national security of the US” and that there are no “legitimate reasons” to include it on the US’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, as it has been under the Trump administration. They also insisted the country does not harbor, support or fund terrorists – something the US has long accused it of doing – and denied hosting foreign military or intelligence bases.

Prior to the meeting, Trump had suggested earlier this week that his administration was preparing to talk with Cuba, claiming the island was a “failed country” asking for help amid a deepening economic crisis.

“Cuba is asking for help, and we are going to talk!!! In the meantime, I’m off to China!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

The Trump administration recently intensified sanctions against Cuba and months ago it effectively imposed an oil blockade on the country. The US military has also ramped up intelligence-gathering flights off the coast of Cuba.

Other than one shipload of donated Russian oil, Cuban officials say they have been cut off by the US from any oil shipments for more than four months.

The Russian donation in late March has been exhausted and oil reserves that run the island’s beleaguered electrical grid are all but spent, Cuban Minister of Energy and Mines Vicente de la O Levy said in a televised appearance Wednesday night.

The minister’s comments came just hours after the State Department said the US was offering the island $100 million in aid, to carry out “meaningful reforms to Cuba’s communist system.”

The following day, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel suggested on X that Cuba would be open to receiving aid from the US, but that “lifting or easing the blockade” would be preferred.

“If there is truly a willingness on the part of the United States government to provide aid … it will encounter no obstacles or ingratitude from Cuba,” the president posted to X.

“Incidentally, the damage could be alleviated in a much easier and more expeditious way by lifting or easing the blockade, as it is well known that the humanitarian situation is coldly calculated and induced.”

As part of the aid package, the US has offered the donation of Starlink terminals that would expand connectivity on the island but also break the Cuban government’s monopoly on the internet.

Last month, a senior US delegation met with Cuban government officials in Cuba as the Trump administration ramped up its efforts to pressure Havana into a deal.

The senior State Department delegation stressed that time was running out for Havana “to make key US-backed reforms before circumstances irreversibly worsen,” a US State Department official told CNN.

The US delegation stressed “Cuba’s need to make significant economic and governance reforms to enhance competitiveness, attract foreign investment, and allow private sector-led growth,” according to the official.

The delegation also demanded that the Cuban government release political prisoners and increase “political freedoms,” the official said, and expressed concerns “about foreign intelligence, military, and terror groups operating with Cuban governmental permission less than 100 miles from the American homeland.”

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CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez, Jennifer Hansler and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.