Cuba unveils ``double-agent'' to accuse U.S. group
 
                  HAVANA (Reuters) -- Cuba unveiled a self-confessed secret double-agent
                  in court on Thursday to back its allegations that a powerful U.S. exile group
                  was behind 1997 bombs and other terrorist plots against the Caribbean
                  island.

                  In one of the most dramatic moments of this week's trial of a Salvadoran for
                  terrorism, witness Percy Francisco Alvarado Godoy said he was a
                  Guatemalan working for Cuban state security who had infiltrated the Cuban
                  American National Foundation.

                  "Today, this tribunal is judging the material author of terrorist acts carried out
                  in Cuba, but the intellectual authors are missing from the dock," Alvarado
                  said under questioning from a Cuban state prosecutor.

                  "Those who should be judged are the Cuban American National
                  Foundation," he added, naming the leaders of an organisation he said had
                  encouraged him to help plan to sabotage the Cuban economy with
                  explosions and to assassinate President Fidel Castro.

                  The Miami-based CANF, fierce opponents of Castro and his one-party
                  communist system, has at various times denied any links to violence against
                  Cuba since Havana publicly leveled those charges last year.

                  "I am a Guatemalan citizen, resident in Cuba since April 9, 1960. For the
                  Cuban American National Foundation I am 'Agent 44', and for Cuban state
                  security, for the last 22 years, I am 'Agente Fraile," Alvarado said in a slow
                  but firm tone at the start of his testimony.

                  His declarations backed the Cuban government's case that the 27-year-old
                  Salvadoran defendant, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, was working for the CANF
                  and for a Cuban exile commando Luis Posada Carriles when he carried out
                  a string of bomb attacks against tourist installations in 1997.

                  Those attacks, intended to damage Cuba's fast-growing tourist industry,
                  killed an Italian visitor and injured another 11 people. Cruz has already
                  confessed to the attacks, but insisted he was working through a Salvadoran
                  contractor and did not have any knowledge of or contact with Posada or the
                  CANF.

                  State prosecutor Rafael Pino Becquer has asked for the death-penalty for
                  Cruz, which would be carried out by firing squad. The trial is due to wind up
                  this week, with a verdict to be announced in the coming weeks.

                  Under questioning on Thursday, Cruz said he now had "no doubt" over the
                  CANF's alleged involvement, though he repeated he was acting in the dark
                  when sent to Cuba by the Salvadoran contractor.

                  In extensive verbal evidence, Alvarado said he was recruited during a
                  November 1993 meeting at a Miami car-park, to join an alleged clandestine
                  military wing of the CANF called the Cuban National Front. They explained
                  their mission "to carry out violent acts aimed at turning back the
                  revolutionary process in Cuba, and throw the economy into chaos," he said.

                  He was asked to help plan or participate in a series of attacks against places
                  in Havana such as the world-famous Tropicana nightclub, the Nacional
                  hotel, the Cira Garcia health clinic for foreigners, the Villa Marista state
                  security headquarters, and the Communist Party headquarters.

                  CANF president Francisco Jose Hernandez had a particular obsession with
                  killing Castro by booby-trapping the drainage system under Havana's
                  elegant Fifth Avenue where the Cuban leader frequently passes in a convoy
                  of black Mercedes, Alvarado added in his testimony.

                  Two Guatemalans, detained in Cuba since last year for suspected terrorism
                  offenses, also testified on Thursday at the trial. They gave evidence of being
                  part of a network of Central American mercenaries recruited for violent acts
                  against Cuba.

                  A Cuban state security officer, Colonel Adalberto Rabeiro, also took the
                  stand to describe the Central American network headed by that "terrible
                  terrorist Luis Posada Carriles."

                  "We have a permanent control of this gentleman and we have taken a series
                  of measures to prevent his plans to perpetrate new terrorist activities,"
                  Rabeiro said.

                  Foreign diplomats and correspondents have been attending the terrorism
                  trial, in stark contrast to the closed nature of last week's trial in Havana of
                  four prominent dissidents for allegedly inciting sedition.