Indictment of Raul Castro for 1996 shoot-down expected to be unsealed in Miami next week

The mainstream framing of a potential U.S. indictment of Raúl Castro tends to drift into symbolism: a belated gesture, a Cold War relic, a headline for Miami. That misses what’s actually being tested. If the case is unsealed, it is not theater. It is a statement about whether American law still has teeth when the accused wears a uniform and sits behind a dictatorship’s walls.

Conservatives have long argued that the rule of law cannot stop at our shoreline. The 1996 shoot-down was not an “incident.” It was the killing of civilians, and treating it as a diplomatic footnote erodes public trust in equal justice.

There is also national security in clarity. A regime that believes time will wash away accountability learns the wrong lesson. Fairness for victims matters, even decades later.

The principle at stake is simple: accountability is not optional just because the perpetrator is powerful.