Overview
- State television showed 95‑year‑old Raúl Castro at the 65th anniversary event of the Dirección de Seguridad Personal on Saturday, countering social‑media and single‑source reports that he had been hospitalized or died.
- Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas read a letter written by Castro that praised the security force, invoked the 32 Cuban deaths on Jan. 3, 2026, and warned of U.S. hostility.
- Castro appeared alongside President Miguel Díaz‑Canel and his grandson Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who has been identified as an interlocutor in confidential talks with U.S. officials.
- The reappearance comes while a U.S. Department of Justice indictment filed on May 20, 2026, charging Castro over the 1996 shootdown remains active and U.S. authorities say they want him prosecuted.
- The event highlights Havana’s habit of limited medical disclosure for senior leaders, a pattern that fuels repeated speculation and complicates how Cubans and foreign governments assess who actually holds power during an economic and energy squeeze.