A judge in the United States has ordered the arrest of Raúl Castro, picking up a thread that began with a deadly incident in 1996. That year Cuban fighter jets attacked two aircraft flown by Hermanos al Rescate, Brothers to the Rescue, a group of Miami-based exiles. Four crew members died in the shootdown over the Florida Straits. The strike set off a diplomatic crisis between Washington and Havana whose effects are still felt thirty years on. Relatives of the victims kept pursuing justice through American courts in the decades that followed. That persistence has now led to the arrest order against Castro, who ran Cuba's armed forces when the planes went down. Three decades later, the downing of those aircraft continues to carry consequences for the island's leadership.