In the early 1990s, tens of thousands of Cubans were taking to the sea aboard rickety handmade rafts in a perilous quest for a new life in the United States. Pilots from Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban American humanitarian aid group, made it their mission to save them.<\/p>\n
On the afternoon of Feb. 24, 1996, eight volunteers left a small airport north of Miami aboard three Cessnas. Only one plane made it back.<\/p>\n
The Cuban military scrambled MiG fighter jets and blew two of the planes out of the sky, killing four people, including three American citizens, and setting off international outcry. The MiG pilots were recorded on radio traffic rejoicing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were pulverized in the sky in international airspace in broad daylight before the eyes of the world,\u201d said Sylvia G. Iriondo, who was a passenger on the third plane. \u201cIt was a heinous crime committed against defenseless and unarmed small planes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The killings remain one of the most significant tragedies in the nearly 70-year history of the Cuban exile community in Miami. For three decades, Cuban American lawmakers, exile activists, survivors and family members of the victims have called for criminal indictments against Ra\u00fal Castro, who was Cuba\u2019s defense minister at the time and later became president.<\/p>\n
In what is perhaps the worst kept secret in South Florida, federal prosecutors in Miami are working toward securing an indictment of Mr. Castro, who is no longer president but remains a key decision maker in Cuba, according to several people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n
The number of defendants and the exact charges are still under discussion, but it could include drug trafficking charges and accusations connected to the ill-fated Cessnas, the people said.<\/p>\n
A criminal case in an episode of such public heartbreak would raise the stakes in ongoing secret negotiations between the two countries and bring relief to Cuban Americans who have long sought justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to this,\u201d Ms. Iriondo said.<\/p>\n
Brothers to the Rescue was founded in 1991, during an extraordinary migration and economic crisis in Cuba. Cuba\u2019s economy was in ruins after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and people were desperate to leave by any means possible.<\/p>\n
In the summer of 1994, some 35,000 people fled aboard rafts, tires and any other ramshackle vessel, most of them barely seaworthy.<\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 Basulto, a pilot, former C.I.A. operative and veteran of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, founded the Brothers to the Rescue. He raised millions of dollars to purchase small planes and regularly took flights over the Straits of Florida in search of people lost at sea. He would then summon help from the U.S. Coast Guard.<\/p>\n
But migration agreements between the Clinton administration and Cuba\u2019s communist government largely ended the rafter crisis. According to the accord, Cubans caught at sea would be turned back.<\/p>\n
Brothers to the Rescue, the Cuban government has long asserted, ceased having a reason to exist.<\/p>\n
The group turned to not just looking for migrants stranded at sea but sometimes to poking then-President Fidel Castro by flying over Cuba or even dropping leaflets containing excerpts from the U.N. universal declaration of human rights. In 1995, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that it was investigating the organization for violating Cuban air space.<\/p>\n
Ms. Iriondo, who took her first flight with the group the day of the attack, said there were \u201ccertainly\u201d no leaflets dropped that trip.<\/p>\n
But to the Cuban government, Mr. Basulto was a provocateur and terrorist, firing a cannon from an offshore boat in 1962 at a Cuban hotel said to be frequented by Fidel Castro, he acknowledged under oath.<\/a><\/p>\n As a pilot, he had been warned not to cross the 24th parallel, a line about 40 to 60 miles north of Cuba\u2019s coast. While still part of international waters and airspace, Cuba considers the area stretching to the line its defense zone. Cuban airspace extends 12 miles off its coast.<\/p>\n On the day the planes were shot down, Mr. Basulto had filed a flight plan with the F.A.A., planning a five-hour trip to the edge of that line.<\/p>\n He announced himself to Havana\u2019s air traffic control, saying he would cross the 24th parallel and fly north of Havana for several hours. He sent warm greetings.<\/p>\n \u201cRoger, sir,\u201d Cuban air traffic control responded, according to transcripts later made public. \u201cWe inform you that the area north of Havana is activated. You are taking a risk by flying south of 24.\u201d<\/p>\n At 2:58 p.m., Mr. Basulto responded: \u201cWe know that we are in danger each time we fly into the area south of 24, but we are ready to do so as free Cubans.\u201d<\/p>\n At 3:20, Mr. Basulto remarked that it was a beautiful day. \u201cHavana looks just fine from up here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A minute later, Brothers to the Rescue pilots spotted fighter jets.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re going to shoot at us?\u201d Ms. Iriondo was recorded saying.<\/p>\n