BBC travels to Cuba as US announces criminal charges against Raul Castro

BBC correspondent Will Grant reports from Havana, just hours after the United States accused former Cuban leader Raul Castro of conspiring to kill American nationals and other crimes.

The case unsealed Wednesday accuses Castro and five others of involvement in the 1996 downing of two planes belonging to the Cuban-American group Brothers to the Rescue. Four people died, including three Americans.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the charges a “political ploy that lacks any legal basis.”

Castro, who is nearly 95 and the younger brother of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, remains an influential figure and is regarded by those on the island as the surviving “leader of the Cuban revolution.”