By Suzanne Harrison
MIAMI, Nov 8 (Reuters) - U.S. citizen Walter Van Der Veer dropped to his knees and prayed during his trial this week in Cuba on charges of anti-Castro activities, a U.S. lawyer who attended the proceedings said on Saturday.
The Cuban government allowed U.S. lawyer Dominick Salfi, a former Florida judge, to attend the trial but not to act as defense lawyer for Van Der Veer, a 52-year-old Florida resident who was arrested in Havana in August 1996.
"Before he got on the stand, he got down on his knees and prayed,'' Salfi, given a visa to enter Cuba to attend the hearing, told Reuters shortly after his return to Miami.
Salfi said he was not allowed to talk to Van Der Veer nor to his court-appointed defender.
Van Der Veer "was certainly lucid in the sense that he could talk but I really don't know if he knew what was going on,'' Salfi said.
"The state decided to reduce his sentence to 20 years so we would expect that at the most that he would be sentenced to between 10 and 20 years,'' he added.
A Cuban state prosecutor on Thursday dropped an initial demand for the death penalty and called for a 20-year jail term instead.
Havana's provincial court wound up the trial of Van Der Veer in six hours on Thursday and then adjourned to consider its verdict, which had not been announced by Saturday. Salfi said he thought it would take a few days.
Under the Cuban legal system, a trial generally ends at a point called "ready for sentencing'' -- and there may be a delay of hours or several days before the verdict and sentence are announced.
Salfi also was unable to understand what was being said at the beginning of the tribunal as a Cuban government appointed interpreter arrived late.
He declined comment on whether he thought Van Der Veer had had a fair trial.
The prosecution alleged Van Der Veer, a Florida resident married to a woman born in Cuba, sought to overthrow the Cuban government and in particular, President Fidel Castro.
It accused him of smuggling in a small selection of U.S. military gear such as uniforms and hats and of printing anti-Castro leaflets and throwing them out of car windows in Havana on two occasions in 1996.
It also said he tried unsuccessfully to obtain guns and grenades and planned a series of attacks against state installations.
Van Der Veer's Cuban attorney during the tribunal argued her client fell well short of violent action in an "impassioned'' closing argument, Salfi said earlier this week.
According to Salfi she told the court that "irrespective of Van Der Veer's intent and irrespective of the fact he had been connected with the organization in Florida, all he did was distribute pamphlets and apparently post a banner upon which he even signed his name.''
At home, Van Der Veer was an usher at the Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables, Florida.
His lawyers have said he was in Cuba distributing medicines and educational material, some of it for the church, although they have conceded he was taking part in political activity.
Were the court to rule that Van Der Veer was guilty only of distribution of enemy propaganda, this would probably carry a jail sentence of one to eight years. The charge of "promotion of armed action " which he faces, carries a sentence of 10 to 20 years jail or the death sentence.
His U.S. lawyers said Van Der Veer had been on a hunger strike and was "haggard and thin.''
17:09 11-08-97