Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier secures state arrest warrant for Raúl Castro

Florida has obtained a state arrest warrant for former Cuban leader Raúl Castro on a no-bond charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder stemming from the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, according to a warrant obtained by Fox News Digital.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, whose office reopened the state's investigation into Castro after he took office, is expected to announce the new arrest warrant alongside Gov.

Ron DeSantis at a press conference Monday morning.

The no-bond warrant, issued in Miami-Dade County, directs law enforcement to immediately arrest Castro and says a judge found probable cause to believe he conspired to commit first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of four men aboard the unarmed civilian aircraft.

The warrant marks a new front in efforts to hold Castro accountable for the Feb.

24, 1996, attack, which has long reverberated through South Florida's Cuban-American community.

Castro already faces a separate federal prosecution over the shootdown.

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"The investigation revealed evidence of a conspiracy to kill persons aboard BTTR aircraft.

The deaths of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Peña, and Armando Alejandre Jr. were the object of that conspiracy," the warrant reads.

According to the warrant, investigators allege that in 1996, the Castro regime's foreign intelligence service's plan to shoot down Brothers to the Rescue aircraft and kill their occupants traveled through the chain of command, with Raúl Castro and his brother, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, as the final decision-makers.

"They have violated the airspace, the waters of the Republic.

I made it clear that this had to be decentralized if we wanted it to do its job, and five generals were given the authority.

I used to say: Try to shoot them down over our territory.