HAVANA -- Guatemalan President Alvaro Arzu on Wednesday announced an
 accord with Havana that would allow three Guatemalans held in Cuba on charges
 of attempted terrorism to serve their sentences in their homeland, if they are
 convicted.

 ``After the trial is completed and the sentences are handed down and this
 agreement is signed, these people may be taken to Guatemala to serve their
 sentences,'' Arzu said at a press conference on the final day of a three-day official
 visit to Cuba.

 The accord will be signed ``in the course of next week,'' the president said.

 In March 1998, Cuba arrested two Guatemalan men and one woman, charging
 them with smuggling explosives into Cuba for terrorist purposes.

 The state prosecutor last month asked for a 20-year prison term for Nader Kamal
 Musalam, 25 years for Jazid Ivan Fernandez Mendoza, and 30 years for Maria
 Elena Gonzalez Meza de Fernandez. No date has been set for the trials.

 Musalam is 28 years old; Fernandez, 28, and Gonzalez, 54.

 The pact has mutual implications, Arzu explained, saying that ``prison terms may
 be served in the countries of origin of the people who have been sentenced by
 either Cuba or Guatemala.''

 According to Cuban prosecutors, the three Guatemalans were part of a gang of
 Central American mercenaries hired by the Miami-based Cuban American
 National Foundation to destabilize Cuba and damage its tourist industry.

 Two other alleged members of the purported gang -- Salvadoran citizens Raul
 Ernesto Cruz Leon and Otto Rene Rodriguez Llenera -- were sentenced to death
 by a Havana court in March. Both allegedly confessed having participated in a
 spate of attempts against Cuban hotels in 1997 that left one Italian tourist dead.

 During the Guatemalan president's visit, Arzu and Cuban President Fidel Castro
 agreed to cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking and signed bilateral
 accords dealing with agriculture, cattle sales and maritime transport.

 They also agreed to a tourism program called Playa-Maya (Maya-Beach) that will
 allow foreign visitors to one country to visit the other as well, touring the beaches
 of Cuba and the ancient Maya ruins of Guatemala in a single package.

 About 70 private entrepreneurs accompanied Arzu to Havana, where they met
 with their Cuban counterparts and signed several accords on joint ventures, textile
 production, construction, and other industries.

 Relations between both countries were halted in 1961, when anti-Castro exiles
 were trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Guatemalan camps to
 participate in the failed incursion at Bay of Pigs, Cuba. Diplomatic relations were
 restored in January 1998.

 The restoration of relations occurred in a context ``of changes and progress,'' Arzu
 said. ``We are independent and sovereign and we take those stances that benefit
 us.''

 Before leaving Havana on Wednesday, Arzu said that he will be back in the
 Cuban capital in November for the Ninth Ibero-American Summit of heads of state.
 Chilean President Eduardo Frei and Argentine President Carlos Menem have
 stated that they won't attend the summit because of their disagreement with
 Spain over Madrid's handling of the arrest of former Chilean President Augusto
 Pinochet.

 Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman has said he won't attend because of
 personal and political differences with Castro.

 ``All I can tell you is that I will indeed be here [for the summit] and that I'm not
 angry at anyone,'' Arzu said Wednesday.

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald