US indicts former Cuban president as pressure builds

The United States on Wednesday criminally indicted Cuba's former president Raul Castro as Washington called on the communist-ruled island's people to embrace a "new path."

An indictment unsealed in a federal court in Florida charged the influential former president over the 1996 downing of` two civilian planes manned by anti-Castro pilots.

Castro, brother of Fidel Castro, the late iconic US nemesis who led the 1959 communist revolution, was charged with murder, conspiracy to kill Americans, and destruction of aircraft.

The charges added fuel to speculation that President Donald Trump intends to topple the Cuban government.

Trump previously seized on a US domestic indictment to justify military action in January that toppled and seized Venezuela's then president Nicolas Maduro, a staunch ally of the Cuban authorities.

Four people died in the 1996 downing of planes, sending relations plummeting. Two decades later, Raul Castro joined then US president Barack Obama in an effort to reconcile.

But Trump reversed Obama's effort to improve relations.

Trump has repeatedly signaled that the Cuban government could be next after Venezuela to fall, and earlier this month even said Washington would be "taking over" the Caribbean island, about 90 miles (145 km) from Florida, "almost immediately."

In a video message to Cuban people in Spanish, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American, accused the Havana leadership of theft, corruption and oppression.

"President Trump is offering a new path between the US and a new Cuba," Rubio said.

"A new Cuba where you have a real opportunity to choose who governs your country and vote to replace them if they are not doing a good job."