'A murderer is still a murderer whether he is 18 or 100 years old': analyst addresses in VOZ News the legal weight of the accusation against Raúl Castro

The indictment filed in the United States against Raúl Castro for the overthrow of the Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996 does not admit, from a legal point of view, extenuating circumstances due to the age of the Cuban ex-dictator. This was stated by lawyer and political analyst Hugo Achá, an expert in security and defense, in an interview on VOZ News conducted by executive producer Karina Yapor.

"There is a maxim in law, and I am a lawyer: justice delayed is not justice" said Achá, who recalled that the victims of the attack were crew members of civilian aircraft of an organization that helped rafters in the Strait of Florida. For the analyst, it is "surprising and despicable" that there is an attempt to justify the episode, and he completely rejected the arguments that appeal to the advanced age of the ex-dictator Castro (94 years old) to stop the process.

"A murderer is still a murderer whether he is 18 or 100 years old," he said. In this line, he compared the case with the international persecution of other perpetrators of atrocious crimes: "Why did we persecute the executioners of Auschwitz, Treblinka or Buchenwald? Why did we punish those who murdered people in the former Yugoslavia? Why did we put the Rwandan genocidaires in jail?" In his opinion, criminal responsibility for acts of this caliber does not admit a statute of limitations, as some analysts claim.

Achá also responded to the statements of the current Cuban dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel, who described the accusation as a political action without legal basis and called Brothers to the Rescue "narco-terrorist." "The facts speak too loudly," Achá told Yapor, recalling that the aircraft were civilian planes, that the attack occurred in international waters and that there are recordings to prove it. "A confession eliminates the need for further evidence," the attorney and analyst added, underlining that Raul Castro himself has boasted about the episode and that there are recordings of him confessing his participation.

Regarding the case itself, the expert noted that because the indictment was returned by a grand jury, the next step would be the defendant’s arrest and appearance in court. His only reservation, he said, was that Raúl Castro was not also being prosecuted for other crimes he alleges against him, 'including drug trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling, mercenary activity, torture and human rights violations."

Asked about the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off Cuba, Achá called the Cuban regime "one of the clearest, most persistent and permanent threats" to U.S. national security. He also downplayed the ability of Russia to intervene militarily in defense of the regime, considering that the Kremlin has "enough problems today in Ukraine."