By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Mar 15 1999 (IPS)

The four dissidents tried in Cuba early this month on charges of crimes against state security were sentenced to three and a half, four and five years in prison, the government reported Monday.

An official report broadcast by state television detailed that Vladimiro Roca was sentenced to five years in prison, Marta Beatriz Roque to three and a half years, and Rene Gomez and Felix Bonne to four years.

The members of what has come to be called “the group of four” were arrested Jul 16, 1997, several days after circulating, both in and outside of Cuba, a document criticising the government.

At the 14-hour trial on Mar 1, the office of the public prosecutor called for a six-year sentence for Roca and five years for the other three. The four were accused of undermining state security “linked to the crime of sedition.”

The 12 working days that the court had to issue the verdict expired Monday. The defence counsel now has 72 hours to appeal.

The trial was the first held since a reform of the penal code and passage of a law designed to protect Cuba’s “national independence and economy,” by cracking down on “actions aimed at supporting, facilitating or collaborating in” hostile acts against Cuba.

The new law stipulates up to 20 years in prison for anyone who provides information that can be used to further the 38-year-old U.S. embargo against Cuba or “subversive” activities on the island to the United States or any U.S. entity.

But local authorities underlined that the charges against Roca, Gomez, Bonne and Roque were covered by the penal code even prior to the reforms, with sanctions of up to eight years in prison.

In connection to the case, which made headlines worldwide, the government of Fidel Castro accused the United States of organising and financing dissident groups in Cuba “to blatantly promote destabilisation and subversion.”

The government also blamed Washington for using the trial to carry out “an intense smear campaign.”

Neither reporters nor members of the diplomatic corps were allowed into the courtroom.

However, reporters and foreign observers were allowed broad access to last week’s trial of Salvadoran national Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon and the trial of another Salvadoran, Otto Rodriguez Llerena, which began Monday. Both Salvadorans are accused of terrorism.

Cruz Leon’s trial stretched out four days, and the office of the public prosecutor asked for the death penalty. In the same courtroom, Rodriguez Llerena is facing a possible 30-year sentence, after declaring himself guilty.

Cruz Leon confessed that he had planted bombs in six tourist venues from July to September 1997. An Italian tourist was killed in one of the explosions, which left several injured and caused major material losses.

Rodriguez Llerena, who also admitted to having planted a bomb in the Melia Cohiba hotel, was arrested in the Jose Marti international airport in Havana while trying to smuggle 1.5 kgs of plastic explosives into Cuba.

During the first day of Rodriguez Llerena’s trial, the prosecutor described the explosives as sufficient to blow up two 200-passenger airplanes.

Prosecutors have argued that Cuban-American citizen Luis Posada Carriles, who planned the October 1976 explosion of a ‘Cubana de Aviacion’ airplane in which 73 people were killed, had connections to both cases.

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