By JUAN O. TAMAYO
             Herald Staff Writer

             HAVANA -- A Salvadoran man accused of six terror bombings in Havana
             confessed at the start of his trial Monday but denied any links to the Cuban
             American National Foundation or a notorious exile bomber.

             Prosecutors who have vowed they will prove CANF was behind the blasts
             opened Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon's trial with an unusually detailed and public
             presentation by forensic experts using computers, videos and laser pointers.

             Drawing admiring murmurs from the audience, one ``odorologist'' even testified
             that a police dog had matched scent swabs from Cruz Leon and the armrest of a
             hotel lobby couch where he left one of his bombs in 1997.

             The prosecution's presentation appeared designed less to win an already
             all-but-certain conviction than to demonstrate that terror attacks have forced the
             Cuban government to adopt harsh measures at home, such as the new laws on
             dissent that sparked worldwide condemnations last month.

             Cuba's Foreign Ministry invited all foreign diplomats based in Havana to attend the
             trial and issued visas to scores of Salvadoran, Guatemalan and U.S. journalists to
             enter the courtroom and report on the proceedings.

             The publicity was in sharp contrast to the trial last week of four leading dissidents,
             when officials banned journalists and diplomats from the 12-hour trial. The court
             has yet to rule in that trial.

             Signaling the importance that Cuba gives to the Cruz Leon case, the government
             named Deputy Attorney General Rafael Pino as prosecutor and moved the trial
             from a downtown courtroom to a hall in La Cabaña, a notorious 18th-Century
             fortress overlooking the Havana harbor.

             Spanish troops executed dozens of Cuban independence fighters there, and during
             President Fidel Castro's early years in power its ramparts became the backstop
             for hundreds of firing squad executions -- the infamous paredon.

             Prosecutors have asked for the death penalty by firing squad for Cruz Leon, 27,
             accused in six of the dozen or so bombings that racked tourist hotels and
             restaurants in Havana and the resort city of Varadero in 1997.

             Contrite mercenary

             Cruz Leon opened the trial by confessing to the blasts but portraying himself as a
             contrite mercenary who was deeply in dept when a Salvadoran friend, Francisco
             Chavez, offered him $14,400 to carry out the bombings.

             ``I have no links with the foundation,'' he said, repeatedly trying to avoid the image
             of a politically motivated terrorist. ``If behind Chavez . . . was hiding the Miami
             ultra-right, I didn't know that.''

             Cruz Leon also said he had no contacts with any Cubans on the island and had
             never met Luis Posada Carriles, the Salvador-based Cuban exile who has
             repeatedly claimed that he was the mastermind behind Chavez and the bombs.

             ``If I am sentenced to death, I will forgive this court . . . but I don't believe it will
             stop terrorism, because there are unscrupulous and rich people out there who are
             already creating other Cruz Leons,'' he added.

             CANF officials have denied any part in the bombings. Posada told The New York
             Times last year that the late CANF Chairman Jorge Mas Canosa had
             ``personally'' financed his attacks on Cuba, but later recanted his tale.

             Cruz Leon said he initially believed that a business row among hotel owners was
             behind his recruitment to bomb the Nacional, Capri, Triton, Chateau Miramar and
             Copacabana hotels and the famous Bodeguita del Medio restaurant.

             `I am sorry'

             The blasts killed one Italian tourist and wounded four Mexicans, two Chileans and
             one Jamaican before he was arrested Sept. 4, 1997. ``My hands are stained with
             innocent blood,'' Cruz Leon said in his 25-minute speech. ``I am not innocent, but
             I am sorry.''

             Although Posada Carriles has claimed from his hideout in El Salvador that the
             bombs were designed to sow terror among foreign tourists who are Cuba's largest
             single source of hard-currency income, the bombs also sparked a wave of anxiety
             among Cubans who speculated that the bombers had to have some cooperation
             from top government security officials.

             Cruz Leon said Monday that he acted alone and never contacted any Cuban
             dissidents on the island.

             Prosecutor Pino did not challenge Cruz Leon's denial of links with CANF or
             Posada, even though he insisted during a briefing for journalists Saturday that the
             trial would ``conclusively prove'' CANF's responsibility.

             Instead, he asked Cruz Leon a few questions and swiftly moved on to calling
             forensic experts from a list of some 40 witnesses expected to testify before the
             court, made up of three judges and two lay people.

             Parade of experts

             Wearing white lab coats, a parade of experts from the Interior Ministry's Central
             Criminal Laboratory testified that there had been six blasts in 1997, that they were
             caused by bombs and that the explosives used were powerful enough to cause
             significant damage.

             One declared that traces of the plastic explosive known as C-4 had been found in
             Cruz Leon's shoes, backpack, radio and the strong box in his downtown Havana
             hotel.

             Another testified that a screwdriver found among the defendant's possessions had
             been filed down to fit precisely the tiny screws of the Casio pocket calculators that
             were used to set off the bombs.

             One intriguing gap in the prosecution's presentations was the lack of an explanation
             for why a police patrol car had stopped Cruz Leon's taxi Sept. 4 in Havana. He
             was first taken to an immigration office, the prosecutor said, and only later
             confessed to state security agents.

             Cruz Leon's attorney, Daniel Rippe, who appeared to be in his early 30s, asked
             few questions of the witnesses. The defendant's mother, Esther, sat on the first row
             behind her son but declined comment after the opening session.

             Officials said this trial will be followed next Monday by a trial for another
             Salvadoran, Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena, arrested last June as part of the
             bombing ring.

             Three Guatemalans awaiting trial on the same charges have the best evidence of
             participation by senior CANF officials in the Posada Carriles bombing campaign,
             Cuban security officials have said in the past.
 

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