How the Raúl Castro indictment compares to the case against Nicolás Maduro

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]I do want to get to Kelly O'Donnell first to kind of go through some of this terminology we heard from the acting attorney general. He said this is not a show indictment and Kelly I've been going through it during this news conference and he's right there. There is not a lot of I would say smoking gun evidence here at least when it comes to Raul Castro. Essentially as Jose pointed out the one piece of evidence they say is that as leader of the military he green lit all the operations and that they had trained these MIG pilots to focus on small aircraft. They had done this for a couple months in the leadup to the shooting. But beyond that, we don't see a smoking gun here. Is that a fair assessment of the indictment the way we see it?

[00:00:37]>> Based on what I've read through, it's about 19 pages, Tom. And part of it gives you a sense of the history of this case and some of the specifics, about as specific as it gets is what you're referring to. It says, "All orders to kill by the Cuban military traveled through this chain of command with Castro and his brother Fidel Castro as the final decision makers." It also talks about after they had identified the presence of these flights in the area that they had pilots practicing locating and following low slow-flying civilian aircraft like the ones used by the group involved here. So it gives you some of that sort of tactical work that they have evidence they believe to support that and really relying on a chain of command that if in the Cuban structure at that time that Raul Castro was the defense minister and was in uh the position to give the as they describe it here the kill order that that is evidence they're laying out. It includes some photographs and things.

[00:01:35]They don't they don't read well when they're um printed, but you get a sense of it. It shows you the aircraft and a picture of uh Castro at the time. Now, I think the biggest question right now is where is Castro and what happens to him, right?

[00:01:50]>> Because we have seen in many cases where there are people who are indicted abroad, who are not brought to the United States who evade that kind of uh justice within a jurisdiction where this indictment came down. We don't have based on our reporting any indication of any specific attempts to try to extract him. Our colleague Jesse Kersh who was in the room asked about the visit of the CIA director. And uh it would be hard for me to imagine that circumstances like this would not have been discussed in some way. Uh not necessarily revealing this indictment, but talking about the kind of legal peril Castro could face and using that as a leverage point. uh that'll take more reporting to sort out, but that's the context and why Jesse's question was relevant here.

[00:02:35]>> Kelly, to go back to the indictment, because I think this is very important.

[00:02:38]If we compare this indictment to the Maduro indictment, they are they are very different. The Maduro indictment had times and places it named narot traffickers that members of Maduro's family had met with. I mean, there were several instances where they looked like they were connecting drug trafficking directly to Nicolas Maduro. Not that the the US may not have more evidence against Raul Castro, but you know, I think the the acting attorney general got ahead of maybe some of the headlines saying this is not a show indictment.

[00:03:06]And that essentially means we're not going to lay out all the evidence we have. We're not going to overwhelm the readers of this with the facts that we may have or may not have.

[00:03:14]>> And certainly the time and place is very different. So the charges against Madura are far more contemporary. This is 30 years ago against a hostile adversary where there might have been limitations on the kind of evidence the US could obtain. They have obtained some of this that gives sort of the working operational details of how these flights were targeted and then shot down. Uh but you're right, this is not the kind of contemporary crime in play being recorded and tracked by federal authorities based on what we're seeing here. will of course wait is will there be a trial and will evidence be presented in court but it is a historical narrative it is details about the individuals not only Castro but five others as we've discussed they were pilots as a part of this mission and there will be enormous pressure now politically and uh both domestic politics for the United States and international politics for the administration but for the department of justice this is and for the Trump administration this is an opportunity to check a box that has been waiting for a very very long time on serious charges that relate to the deaths of Americans uh long ago but still very relevant in terms of how some of these issues are playing out at the same time that there is this stranglehold posture that the United States is having uh against the current modern-day moment of Cuba to try to pressure the regime by cutting off sources of their uh income and and energy and all of those things that are ramping up the pressure. Timed also with uh the Secretary of State who was not present today uh talking to the Cuban people directly. So, so many layers to this, Tom. The document is important, the charges are important, but so is all the context we've been talking about.

[00:05:02]>> And ultimately, a grand jury did choose to indict and and a jury will we'll see the evidence at some point if if Real Caster is ever brought to to trial. We thank you for watching and remember, stay updated on breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or watch live on our YouTube channel.