Raúl Castro, 94, is facing a potential US federal indictment over Cuba's 1996 shootdown of two civilian Cessnas flown by Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based exile group. Four Cuban Americans died. The Clinton administration condemned it at the time and Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act partly in response, but criminal charges against Castro personally never followed. If the DOJ moves forward, it would be the first federal indictment of a former head of state for an act of state-sanctioned murder committed against US citizens in international airspace. Castro is elderly and almost certainly beyond extradition, but an indictment on record changes the legal and diplomatic calculus for anyone in Havana who thinks the clock has run out.