Opinion ID: 2742333
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Presentation of Evidence to a Grand Jury

Text: That factual background brings us to the substance of this appeal. Petitioner Nelson Morales, the brother of Pablo Morales, a victim of the 1996 BTTR incident, seeks to compel the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida (or, in the alternative, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida) to present evidence to a grand jury implicating Fidel Castro and Raul Castro in the murders of the BTTR men. Specifically, Morales wants the grand jury to be made aware that Fidel and Raul Castro “claimed responsibility over 17 years ago for ordering the murders of the four BTTR men.” The evidence Morales seeks to have presented includes: (1) a Time Magazine interview from March 11, 1996, in which Fidel Castro stated that he “take[s] responsibility for what took place”; (2) Fidel Castro’s statement, in the same interview, that Raul Castro participated in the decision to attack the BTTR 4 Case: 14-10391 Date Filed: 10/15/2014 Page: 5 of 14 planes; (3) Raul Castro’s recollection, in an interview with Cuban journalists on June 21, 1996, of a military meeting prior to the incident in which he agreed that it may be necessary to “shoot [the BTTR men] down in the ocean when they appear”; and (4) a September 3, 1996 interview of Fidel Castro by Dan Rather in which Castro acknowledged that instructions were given to the Cuban pilots, who “had the authority” to shoot down the planes. In that interview, Fidel Castro repeated his earlier statement, saying: “I take responsibility for it.” Because Fidel and Raul Castro have never been indicted for the murders of the BTTR men, Morales seeks to compel the presentation of the above-described evidence as well as “any evidence in [the U.S. Attorney’s] possession, or previously submitted to any grand jury, which implicate the Castro brothers in the deaths of the BTTR men.”