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By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and JOSHUA GOODMAN
MIAMI (AP) — The highest Justice Division prosecutor in Miami is contemplating legal investigations of Cuban authorities officers, in accordance with folks aware of the matter. The inquiry comes as President Donald Trump has raised the potential of a “pleasant takeover” of the communist-run island.
Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of Florida, has created a “working group” that features federal prosecutors and officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration and different companies to attempt to construct instances in opposition to folks linked to the Cuban authorities and its Communist Occasion, in accordance with one of many folks. They spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to publicly talk about the trouble.
It was not instantly clear which Cuban officers the workplace is concentrating on or what legal prices prosecutors could also be trying to deliver.
The Justice Division stated in an announcement Friday that “federal prosecutors from throughout the nation work each day to pursue justice, which incorporates efforts to fight transnational crime.”
The trouble is happening in opposition to the backdrop of Trump’s more and more aggressive stance in opposition to Cuba’s communist management.
Emboldened by the U.S. seize of Cuba’s shut ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump final month stated his administration was in high-level talks with officers in Havana to pursue “a pleasant takeover” of the nation. He repeated these claims this week, saying his consideration would flip again to Cuba as soon as the battle with Iran winds down.
“They need to make a deal so dangerous,” Trump stated of Cuba’s management.
Whereas Cuba has pale from Washington’s radar as a serious nationwide safety risk in current many years, it stays a precedence within the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace in Miami, whose political, financial and cultural life is dominated by Cuban-American exiles.
The FBI discipline workplace has a devoted Cuba group that in 2024 was instrumental within the arrest of former U.S. Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha on prices of serving as a undercover agent of Cuba stretching again to the Nineteen Seventies.
In current weeks, a number of Miami Republicans, along with Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have referred to as on the Trump administration to reopen its legal investigation into the 1996 shootdown of 4 planes operated by anti-communist exiles.
In a letter to Trump on Feb. 13, lawmakers together with Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez highlighted decades-old information reviews indicating that former President Raúl Castro — the pinnacle of Cuba’s navy on the time — gave the order to shoot down the unarmed Cessna plane.
“We consider unequivocally that Raúl Castro is chargeable for this heinous crime,” lawmakers wrote. “It’s time for him to be dropped at justice.”
Whereas no indictment in opposition to Castro has been introduced, Florida’s lawyer basic stated this week that he would open a state-level investigation into the crime.
The Trump administration has additionally accused Cuba of not cooperating with American counterterrorism efforts, including it alongside North Korea and Iran to a choose few nations the U.S. considers state sponsors of terrorism.
The designation stems from Cuba’s harboring of U.S. fugitives and its refusal to extradite a number of Colombian insurgent leaders whereas they have been engaged in peace talks with the South American nation.
Richer reported from Washington.
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