HAVANA -- (AP) -- A Salvadoran man has been sentenced to death for a string
             of hotel bombings, the government announced Tuesday, sending a strong message
             to those who would violently attack Cuba's communist system.

             Under Cuban law, the death sentence of Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon will be appealed
             immediately to the Supreme Court, the Communist Party daily Granma said in a
             three-paragraph story.

             The death sentence comes amid a general toughening by the Cuban government,
             which in recent months has said it is under growing attack by the U.S. government,
             violent Cuban exiles in Miami and domestic political dissidents.

             The verdict in the trial of a second Salvadoran charged with terrorism, Otto Rene
             Rodriguez Llerena, is pending. The prosecution has recommended the death
             penalty in his case as well.

             ``I cannot talk because I feel so bad. I have lost all hope,'' said Cruz Leon's
             mother, Ester Leon Hernandez. She was leaving Mass at a church in Havana,
             where she has been staying during her son's trial.

             ``We really didn't think that he would be sentenced to death,'' Cruz Leon's
             brother, William, said in El Salvador. He said his brother had confessed and
             cooperated with the Cuban prosecution.

             Trabajadores, the Communist Party's workers weekly newspaper, on Monday
             defended the government's tough prosecution of the two Salvadorans.

             ``We have the moral right to demand, in our name and in that of all humanity, that
             there be a stop to the terrorism being used against us,'' the editorial read. ``The
             world must understand that what is being done today to Cuba by those carrying
             out these neo-fascist practices could be done tomorrow to any other country.''

             During Cruz Leon's trial, prosecutors sought to show that leaders of the
             Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation recruited and paid Cruz Leon
             to plant bombs at six tourist locales. The blasts killed an Italian man and injured 11
             people, including seven foreigners.

             Before closing arguments, prosecutors showed a video from a television interview
             in which Luis Posada Carriles, a longtime exile activist, claimed that Cruz Leon
             was contracted by members of the foundation to carry out the bombings.

             The foundation has repeatedly denied that it funded the bombings, a charge the
             Cuban government has made since it arrested Cruz Leon 18 months ago.

             Cruz Leon admitted he planted bombs in five hotels and a restaurant in a plot to
             scare away tourists and hurt a prime source of income for Havana government.