{"id":508839,"date":"2026-05-28T18:02:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T22:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/a-former-cuban-pilot-accused-alongside-raul-castro-was-convicted-on-another-charge-in-the-united-states\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T18:02:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T22:02:04","slug":"a-former-cuban-pilot-accused-alongside-raul-castro-was-convicted-on-another-charge-in-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/international\/a-former-cuban-pilot-accused-alongside-raul-castro-was-convicted-on-another-charge-in-the-united-states\/","title":{"rendered":"A former Cuban pilot accused alongside Ra\u00fal Castro was convicted on another charge in the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"Former Cuban pilot Luis Ra\u00fal Gonz\u00e1lez-Pardo Rodr\u00edguez was sentenced this Thursday to seven months in prison for immigration fraud in a federal court in Jacksonville, Florida, although he will only have to serve an additional 10 days of that sentence for having been detained for more than six months. The sentence is overshadowed by a much more serious accusation: conspiring to assassinate U.S. citizens in the downing of two planes of the organization Brothers to the Rescue in 1996.\n\n\n

<\/a>The 65-year-old former lieutenant colonel of the Revolutionary Armed Forces<\/strong> of Cuba reached a plea agreement in the immigration case. He admitted to having lied when applying for permanent residency in April 2025, when he declared that he had not received military training nor had he served in the army, despite having been a member of the Cuban Air Force between 1980 and 2009.<\/p>\n\n\nGonz\u00e1lez-Pardo entered the United States in 2024 under the humanitarian parole program enabled by the administration of then-President Joe Biden<\/strong> and was arrested in November of that year. His defense argued that the omission in the immigration form could have been due to fear, confusion, or the fear that a truthful answer would compromise his stay in the country.\n\n\n

<\/a>The most significant case was revealed on May 20th, when the U.S. Attorney’s Office accused Gonz\u00e1lez<\/strong>–Pardo<\/strong>, along with five other people, of conspiring to kill U.S. citizens. The events date back to February 24, 1996, when MiG<\/strong> fighter jets from the Cuban Air Force shot down two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue planes over the Straits of Florida, causing the death of their four crew members.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\nAccording to the accusation, Gonz\u00e1lez-Pardo was piloting one of the fighter jets that pursued a third civilian plane, in which the leader of the organization, Jos\u00e9 Basulto<\/strong>, was traveling, who managed to escape. The Prosecution also maintains that the former pilot and three other defendants received specific training to locate and pursue small aircraft such as those used by Brothers to the Rescue.\n\nWe recommend reading:\n\n\n

<\/a>Among those charged is former Cuban leader Ra\u00fal Castro<\/strong>, 94 years old, who served as Minister of Defense at the time of the events and who, according to the indictment, authorized the use of lethal force against the organization. Castro faces charges of conspiracy, murder, and destruction of aircraft, in what constitutes the first time that the US justice system has charged a high-ranking official of the Cuban government.<\/p>\n\n\nThe criminal lawyer Nelson Rodr\u00edguez Varela<\/strong> warned that the sentence for immigration fraud will be insignificant compared to what Gonz\u00e1lez-Pardo could receive in the murder trial. \u201cThe sentence he is going to receive in the second case is going to be a much more serious sentence\u201d<\/strong>, said the lawyer, who added that the former pilot will remain in custody until that process is resolved.\n\nRodr\u00edguez Varela also pointed out that Gonz\u00e1lez-Pardo could become the central witness against Ra\u00fal Castro, given that he is the only one of the accused who is under the jurisdiction of the American justice system. \u201cI think he must already have been cooperating\u201d<\/strong> with the authorities, the lawyer stated.\n\nThe murder case could take several months to proceed, as Gonz\u00e1lez-Pardo has not yet been brought before a judge in that process. For the crime of immigration fraud, the maximum penalty contemplated is 10 years in prison, although the sentence imposed this Thursday was well below that ceiling.\n\nHavana maintains that the small planes shot down in 1996 were within Cuban airspace at the time of the incident. The island’s government also accuses Basulto of having belonged to the CIA and of having participated in paramilitary actions, including the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961.\n\nThe charges against Castro come in a context of maximum pressure from Washington on Cuba, subjected to a US embargo since 1962 that was aggravated last January. Immigration lawyer Jos\u00e9 Guerrero<\/strong> underlined, on the sidelines of the criminal case, the legal obligation that governs for any applicant: \u201cYou always have to tell the truth in any application you submit to the immigration service.\u201d","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Cuban pilot Luis Ra\u00fal Gonz\u00e1lez-Pardo Rodr\u00edguez was sentenced this Thursday to seven months in prison for immigration fraud in a federal court in Jacksonville, Florida, although he will only have to serve an additional 10 days of that sentence for having been detained for more than six months. The sentence is overshadowed by a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133556,"featured_media":508840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[43727,40230],"class_list":["post-508839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international","tag-luis-raul-gonzalez","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-28n5","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/ZEGI2Z7OSFD7JGQOIE2QI7BOF4.avif","dum_api":{"author_name":"Yerandi Santana","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/cropped-WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-13-at-5.35.07-PM-96x96.jpeg","categories_name":["International"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/ZEGI2Z7OSFD7JGQOIE2QI7BOF4.avif"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}