Cuban Prosecution recommends death penalty in hotel bombing case

HAVANA -- (AP) -- The Cuban Attorney General's office has recommended the death penalty for a Salvadoran man who confessed to a hotel bombing spree that killed an Italian man and injured seven others in 1997.

The recommendation Monday was included in the prosecution's investigation and preliminary conclusions, submitted in the case of Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon to Havana's Popular Provincial Tribunal, Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency said.

It was unclear when Cruz Leon would be tried on the terrorism charges.

Considering the seriousness of the charges and the current crackdown on both common and political crimes, the tribunal is likely to follow the prosecution's recommendation.

Last week, Cuban lawmakers modified the penal code to expand the death penalty and raise the country's longest prison sentence from 20 to 30 years. They also approved a law aimed at prosecuting dissidents who support and promote hostile U.S. policies, such as economic sanctions, toward Cuba.

The bombing case covers both the criminal and political.

The violent acts appeared to have been aimed at harming the communist government's modest economic gains by frightening away the tourists who now provide one of the country's most important sources of income.

After his arrest, Cruz Leon admitted on Cuban television to planting bombs in three hotels and a restaurant on Sept. 4, 1997. In one explosion, Fabio di Celmo, 32, of Italy was killed, and seven other people were injured.

Prensa Latina said that the Attorney General's office also recommended a 30-year prison sentence for Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena, another Salvadoran accused of similar terrorist acts.

Rodriguez Llerena was arrested at Havana's international airport on June 10 with a package of plastic explosives and other items that the government said were designed ``to undertake terrorist activities.''

Cuban officials say the men told them that their activities were financed by the Cuban American National Foundation and organized by Luis Posadas Carriles, a Cuban exile well-known here.

The Miami-based foundation has denied the allegations.

The New York Times reported last July that Posada Carriles had admitted backing attempts to bomb Cuban tourist facilities. It reported he said the foundation helped finance those attacks.

Posada Carriles later said he had lied about the involvement of the foundation but did not deny his own alleged role.

Posadas Carriles has been accused by Cuban authorities of responsibility for the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner that killed 73 people. He was twice acquitted of that action, but spent nine years in a Venezuelan prison before escaping in 1985.