China has demanded the United States halt its pressure campaign against Cuba after Washington indicted former Cuban president Raúl Castro on murder charges over the 1996 downing of two civilian planes.
China has called on the United States to stop using “coercion” and “threats” against Cuba, following Washington’s indictment of 94-year-old former president Raúl Castro on charges of conspiracy to kill US nationals.
Castro was charged alongside five others over the shooting down of two planes operated by Cuban-American dissident group Brothers to the Rescue, which killed four people. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Washington should “cease using sanctions and judicial apparatus as tools of coercion against Cuba and refrain from making threats of force at every turn.”
Cuba’s president Miguel Díaz-Canel dismissed the charges as “a political manoeuvre, devoid of any legal foundation.”
The indictment comes as the US intensifies sanctions on Cuba, including an oil blockade that has caused blackouts and food shortages on the island.
NEWS NOW:
