US plans to indict Cuba’s Raul Castro, says Department of Justice official

WASHINGTON - The United States plans to indict Cuba’s Raul Castro, a US Department of Justice official said late on May 14.

The timing of the potential indictment, which would need to be approved by a grand jury, was not immediately clear, but the official said it sounds imminent.

The potential indictment of the 94-year-old former president of Cuba and brother of Fidel Castro, the revolutionary who led the island from 1959 to 2008, is expected to focus on the downing of aircraft, the official said.

US media outlet CBS previously reported that the conduct at issue in the case relates to Cuba’s deadly 1996 shooting down of planes operated by humanitarian group Brothers to the Rescue.

Representatives for Cuba’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of normal business hours.

A US Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has called the current communist-run government corrupt and incompetent and is seeking to replace it, despite ongoing talks. The latest move comes as President Donald Trump ​has heaped pressure on Cuba, effectively imposing a blockade on the island by threatening sanctions on countries supplying it with ⁠fuel, igniting power outages and delivering blows to its economy.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida has been overseeing an effort to examine potential criminal charges against senior Cuban government officials.

Officials from both countries acknowledged earlier this year that they were in talks, but the ​negotiations appeared to founder amid the ongoing US fuel blockade.

Negotiations appeared to have stalled in recent weeks, though on May 14 the Cuban government confirmed it had met CIA chief John Ratcliffe.

Mr Ratcliffe told intelligence officials in Cuba that the US was prepared to engage on economic security issues if Cuba makes “fundamental changes”, a CIA official said. REUTERS