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Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said earlier attempts to prosecute Castro in the 1996 downing of a humanitarian flight off the Cuban coast might not have been successful because of his role as head of state.
With Castro's announced plan to resign, Ros-Lehtinen said, "there should no longer be any diplomatic impediments to bringing Fidel Castro to justice" for a Cuban fighter jet attack on the private aircraft on a mission for Brothers to the Rescue.
The congresswoman's suggestions were outlined in a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
The Justice Department did not have an immediate response.
The United States has no active extradition process with Cuba.
The Brothers to the Rescue flight was shot down by two Cuban MiG fighters over international waters. Three U.S. citizens and a U.S. resident aboard the civilian aircraft were looking for stranded Cuban rafters trying to reach the United States.
Families of three of the slain fliers won $188 million in damages in 1997 in a lawsuit that Cuba did not contest in court. The families collected an additional $38 million from frozen U.S. bank accounts belonging to Cuban telephone companies in April 2000.
In August 2003, a Miami federal grand jury indicted a Cuban general and the two MiG pilots on charges of murder, aircraft destruction and conspiracy in the attack. The U.S. attorney leading the case did not press jurors to charge Fidel Castro or his brother, Raul Castro.
[Associated
Press; By LARA JAKES JORDAN]
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