Raúl Castro makes first public appearance since Trump administration charged him with murder

Former Cuban person Raúl Castro made his archetypal nationalist quality Friday since the Trump medication charged him with execution implicit the 1996 shoot-down of planes operated by a Cuban exile group.

Castro appeared connected authorities tv during an Interior Ministry solemnisation successful Havana, according to Reuters.

The quality came weeks aft the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment accusing Castro of playing a relation successful the downing of 2 craft operated by the Miami-based exile enactment Brothers to the Rescue astir 30 years ago.

Castro was charged with conspiracy to termination U.S. nationals, demolition of craft and 4 counts of murder.

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Raul Castro waves a Cuban nationalist emblem during a May Day parade astatine Revolution Square successful Havana, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Castro, who turned 95 connected Wednesday, was past seen publically during May Day celebrations successful Havana, days earlier the indictment was unsealed.

Prior to his May Day appearance, Castro had remained retired of nationalist presumption for months, appearing lone astatine a nationalist ceremonial successful Cuba's superior successful January honoring 32 Cuban soldiers killed during the U.S. subject cognition that led to the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The indictment centers connected a February 1996 incidental successful which Cuban subject craft allegedly changeable down 2 unarmed civilian planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue, sidesplitting 4 men: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales.

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Fidel Castro and his member Raul Castro be a parade successful Havana, Cuba, connected Dec. 2, 1996. (Sven Creutzmann/Mambo Photography/Getty Images)

Prosecutors allege the craft were flying extracurricular Cuban territory erstwhile they were destroyed.

The indictment came amid rising tensions successful the Caribbean and a bid of comments from Trump and his surrogates hinting astatine imaginable authorities alteration successful the land nation.

President Donald Trump antecedently praised the indictment, saying Cuban Americans whose families suffered nether the communist authorities had waited decades for accountability.

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Former Cuban Vice President Jose Machado and dictator Raul Castro are seen successful Cuba. (Yamil Lage/Getty Images)

"We person large quality connected Cuba, arsenic you know, with the indictment of Castro," Trump said. "A batch of radical person suffered precise big, very, very, astatine levels that fewer radical would understand."

Trump besides suggested tensions with Cuba would not escalate pursuing the indictment.

"There won’t beryllium escalation," helium said. "We won’t person to."

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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and erstwhile Cuban person Raul Castro basal unneurotic astatine an event. (Ismael Francisco/Cubadebate/AP:Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)

Still, the determination to indict Castro fueled comparisons to the unit run Trump antecedently utilized against Maduro.

"At the precise least, it means symbolically that helium is present acceptable up conscionable arsenic Nicolás Maduro was," Christine Balling, a Cuba adept astatine the Institute of World Politics and erstwhile advisor to U.S. Special Operations Command South, antecedently told Fox News Digital.

The U.S. indicted Maduro connected narco-terrorism charges portion tightening sanctions connected Venezuela's lipid sector, backing absorption efforts to region him from powerfulness and expanding subject operations successful the Caribbean.

"I don't deliberation that we are needfully going to behaviour the aforesaid operation," Balling said. "Raúl Castro is 94 years old. It mightiness not beryllium worthy the trouble."

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Still, Balling argued that the indictment sent "a precise straightforward connection that we are 100% down the autumn of the Castro regime."

Fox News Digital's Robert McGreevy, Greg Wehner and Morgan Phillips, on with Fox News' David Spunt, Bill Mears and Jake Gibson contributed to this report. Reuters besides contributed to this report.