Shortly after the two-hour presentation of his confession began Wednesday afternoon, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon complained of nausea and wept in a front-row bench. The president of the five-member tribunal called a brief recess so the defendant could see a doctor, but Cruz Leon never returned.
Instead, the screening of the reconstruction of the bombings, taped by Interior Ministry officials shortly after Cruz Leon's arrest in 1997, went on without him.
The tape began with Cruz Leon at the Ambos Mundos Hotel, in the room where he stayed when he arrived in Havana in July 1997 for the first two bombings.
``I brought the explosives in these two shoes,'' Cruz Leon told the camera, pointing to a pair of boots by one of two hotel beds. He explained how he bought them extra large so he could stuff the plastic explosive into the toes.
Then, Cruz Leon toured all the sites he bombed, showing how he sat in a bathroom stall in each of the hotels and armed the explosive, using black electrical tape and making a timing device out of an electronic calculator.
At the well-known Bodeguita del Medio restaurant he armed the device under the tablecloth after ordering a pork steak dinner.
His account of each bombing was extremely detailed, down to the Bucanero beer he ordered at the Copacabana Hotel, the way he greeted the doorman at the Triton Hotel, and how he asked a man at the Bodeguita del Medio restaurant to take his photograph -- after he planted a bomb behind a small refrigerator nearby.
Cruz Leon remained calm through the video, whose style was more like that of a local television reporter describing his vacation than that of a man confessing to crimes that could bring him the death penalty.
Throughout the video reconstruction, he wore the same shorts, T-shirts and sandals he wore the days of the bombings and carried the same Nikon camera and black backpack with the explosive materials
Cruz Leon is accused of -- and has admitted to -- planting bombs in five hotels and a restaurant in a plot to scare away tourists and hurt a prime source of income for the communist island. The bombings killed one man and injured 11 other people, including seven foreigners.
He faces execution by firing squad if convicted. All death sentences are automatically appealed to the Supreme Court.
Earlier Wednesday, Cuba's leading investigator in the case testified that Cuban-American exiles paid Cruz Leon to plant the bombs.
Interior Ministry Investigator Roberto Hernandez specifically accused the Miami-based Cuban-American National Foundation of paying the defendant $4,500 for each bombing. During the first three days of hearings, however, the government has not offered any hard evidence that the foundation paid for the bombings.
Cruz Leon, who Cuban authorities describe as a U.S.-trained Salvadoran army veteran, told the tribunal Monday that his motivation had been financial, not political.
The foundation repeatedly has denied it funded the bombings, a charge the Cuban government has made since it arrested Cruz Leon 18 months ago.
The trial, which could last through Friday, comes amid a toughening stance against opponents by the Cuban government, which sees itself under increasing attack by the U.S. government and the Miami-based exile community.
On March 1, four well-known dissidents were tried by a closed court on charges of furthering U.S. policies against the communist country. The verdicts from that trial are pending.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press