US state issues arrest warrant for Raul Castro

A Florida court has approved legal action against the former Cuban leader over the 1996 shooting down of two US planes A Florida judge has issued an arrest warrant for former Cuban President Raul Castro, 95, the state’s attorney general announced on Monday. The move marks another escalation in Washington’s months-long pressure campaign against Havana.The warrant pertains to the 1996 shooting down of two American planes operated by anti-communist Cuban exiles off Cuba’s coast. US authorities accuse Castro of ordering the attack.“Today, we are announcing state charges against Raul Castro with an arrest warrant for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said at a press conference in Miami. Prosecutors had gathered evidence and witness testimony linking a Cuban spy network to the operation that allegedly led Castro to order the planes shot down, he said. In May, the US Justice Department separately indicted Castro and five others on charges including murder, conspiracy to kill US nationals and destruction of aircraft. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called the indictment a “political maneuver, devoid of any legal foundation” and accused Was...