HAVANA (Reuters) -- A Cuban court has sentenced two U.S. residents to
                  jail terms of life and 30 years for their part in a botched attempt to smuggle
                  would-be Cuban immigrants to Florida, according to court papers seen on
                  Monday.

                  The sentence documents, seen by Reuters, condemned the two Americans
                  of Cuban origin, Joel Dorta Garcia and David Garcia Capote, to life and 30
                  years respectively for the July 3 smuggling attempt in which one of their
                  passengers drowned.

                  A third accused, Pedro Cordova Gonzalez, a Cuban who had assisted the
                  failed attempt to smuggle 14 people from the island in a speedboat, was
                  given a 15-year jail sentence by the Havana People's Provincial Court.

                  The sentence from a panel of judges acknowledged the jail terms were
                  severe but said they were intended to "sound a warning against such serious
                  crimes."

                  It was the first time the Cuban authorities had applied recently toughened
                  penalties against migrant smugglers who charge thousands of dollars to
                  whisk people from Cuba to the United States on high-powered launches.

                  During the August 27 trial, state prosecutor Edelmira Pedriz Yumar said the
                  accused were motivated by the $8,000 charged to families per person
                  smuggled out of Cuba, and had paid no heed to the dangers at sea that day.

                  The sentence also criticised current U.S. migration policy, which allows
                  those Cubans who physically touch American soil to virtually automatically
                  qualify for asylum and residency. Those intercepted at sea are sent home
                  under the terms of 1994 and 1995 immigration accords between Havana
                  and Washington.

                  In the trial, the accused had contended they were merely trying to reunite
                  families split between communist-run Cuba and Florida. They also said they
                  had struggled to help stranded passengers after the boat capsized.

                  Cuba is holding about 40 suspected traffickers caught off its shores in recent
                  years, mostly U.S. residents of Cuban origin, but says the United States is
                  reluctant to take them back for trial on its shores.

                     Copyright 1999 Reuters.