November 13, 1997
By Frances Kerry
HAVANA (Reuters) - A Cuban court-assigned defense lawyer who defended an American facing a possible 20-year jail term for ''promoting armed action against Cuba'' said Wednesday she had argued for a lesser conviction at his trial.
Defense lawyer Lourdes Jola told a news conference she had based the defense last week at Walter Van Der Veer's trial on what she called the proven facts and on what her client had admitted, arguing that he was guilty only of distribution of enemy propaganda. This offense would carry a lesser jail term.
Nuris Pinero, director of special services in Cuba's legal defense system, told the news conference Van Der Veer had told her and Jola Wednesday he was satisfied with how the defense had gone. She added Van Der Veer had told them he did not intend to appeal against any eventual sentence.
Van Der Veer, a 52-year-old Florida resident arrested in Havana in August 1996, was tried at the city's provincial court last Thursday. The prosecution dropped an original demand for the death penalty but called for him to be jailed for 20 years. The trial was closed to the media.
As is customary in the Cuban legal system, the panel of five judges have withdrawn to consider the evidence and are set to deliver their verdict within the next two weeks.
The charge of enemy propaganda that the defense sought would probably be punishable by a sentence of up to eight years, if Van Der Veer were convicted for this rather than for the more serious "promotion of armed action against Cuba.''
Jola declined to speculate what the verdict might be.
Van Der Veer was charged with smuggling in military gear such as U.S. army uniforms, underwear and socks, of printing leaflets against President Fidel Castro's communist government and of throwing the leaflets out of car windows on two occasions in Havana last year.
The prosecution also charged that he tried unsuccessfully to obtain grenades and firearms, and planned a series of attacks on state installations. However the defense argued he fell well short of committing any act of violence.
Both Jola, who said she had had seven interviews with her client, and Pinero said Wednesday Van Der Veer had full mental capacities. But Pinero described him as having some characteristics of "hysteria, moments of histrionics and egocentricity.''
Both said that Van Der Veer first told the court that his Christian faith would not have permitted him to carry out any violence but then contradicted himself.
Jola said Van Der Veer had admitted he belonged to two radical Florida-based anti-Castro organizations -- the Cuban Liberation Front and the "L Commandos'' -- and to printing propaganda for distribution in February and March last year.
She added he told the court that he came to Cuba with the aim of committing "subversive acts.''
After the six-hour trial last week, the U.S. Interests Section in Havana issued an unusual public statement, saying the Van Der Veer case raised concerns over the independence of Cuba's judicial system. In particular, the statement questioned whether he had had access to his lawyer and why he had no witnesses called for his defense.
Cuba's Communist Party newspaper Granma rebuffed the U.S. criticism in a lengthy article Tuesday.
Wednesday's news conference by the lawyers also appeared aimed at showing Van Der Veer received a fair trial.
Cuban Eduardo Morgado Perez was also tried last week on charges of complicity with Van Der Veer, with the prosecution calling for a three-year jail sentence.
Pinero said that Van Der Veer could have been defended by the Cuban lawyer of his choice, but he left it too late and so the court automatically assigned him a lawyer. A U.S. lawyer, Dominick Salfi, was granted a visa by Cuba to attend the trial but only as an observer.
21:45 11-12-97