MIAMI -- (AP) -- An accused Cuban spy who worked at a Navy base near Key
 West filed tidbits about military operations once or twice a week, including the
 number of aircraft present when two civilian planes were shot down by a Cuban
 MiG, an FBI supervisor testified Wednesday.

 Richard Giannotti, head of the FBI's Cuban counterintelligence unit, highlighted
 excerpts from 1,300 pages of decoded messages in the trial of five accused
 Cuban spies, focusing on the work of Antonio Guerrero at Boca Chica Naval Air
 Station.

 The defense claims the five never got any U.S. secrets and were acting as de
 facto U.S. agents by feeding information about terrorist plots by Cuban exiles to
 the FBI, but the prosecution focused Wednesday on military targets of the
 reputed spy ring.

 Guerrero was admonished in an evaluation by Cuban authorities for filing 43.5
 percent fewer reports in 1996 than in 1995 and sending reports about key aircraft
 at the base by mail instead of immediately by radio.

 Pages and pages of his reports cover his aircraft observations, including a report
 that eight C-130 transport planes were present on the day Cuba attacked two
 Brothers to the Rescue planes north of Cuba, killing all four aboard Feb. 24, 1996.

 Guerrero was instructed later that year to report about bombers and other combat
 aircraft at the military base closest to Cuba by radio because delivery of his
 mailed reports to Havana were sometimes delayed up to four months.

 The change in transmission methods appaeared to indicate Cuban paranoia about
 a U.S. invasion. Noted one military specialist in Havana: ``An aggression can be
 conceived in little time.''

 Computer diskettes seized at the homes of the accused spies also disclosed an
 internal debate in Cuba's spy agency about whether Guerrero should be allowed
 to move in with his American girlfriend.

 The new living arrangement, which was eventually approved, would help his cover
 but limit his spying time by giving him less time to prepare messages in secrecy
 and force him to explain beeper summonses from his handlers, Giannotti
 explained.

 While Guerrero worked in the public works department at the base, he was
 commonly addressed in the message traffic as ``comrade'' and reading messages
 from Havana about the ``triumph of our revolution.''

 Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Rene Gonzalez and Fernando
 Gonzalez are charged with being part of a 14-member ring that prosecutors
 charge tried to infiltrate U.S. military installations and Cuban exile groups. Three
 could face life sentences if convicted of espionage conspiracy.