HAVANA -- Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon is a heartless anti-Castro terrorist who detonates bombs near children at play. Or he's a Sylvester Stallone wannabe who never meant to kill an Italian businessman.

Those competing images of the 27-year-old Salvadoran emerged Tuesday on the second day of Cruz Leon's trial on charges that he bombed five Havana hotels and a restaurant in 1997.

Cuban government TV is broadcasting unusually detailed coverage of the trial, including references to two April 1997 bombs at Havana's Melia Cohiba Hotel that officials had never before confirmed.

The fanfare over the terror attacks -- allegedly masterminded by Cuban exiles -- appeared designed to justify the Havana government's tough crackdown on domestic opponents last month that sparked broad condemnation abroad.

Cruz Leon has confessed to the six bombings he is charged with, and could face the death penalty by firing squad if prosecutor Rafael Pino can prove that he is something worse than the naive adventurer he claims to be.

Pino called about 25 witnesses before the court Tuesday to show that the bombs had not only killed businessman Fabio di Celmo, 32, and wounded 11 other people, but had struck at the very heart of Cuban society.

``In Cuba no member of my generation has ever experienced this,'' said Lilian Cabeza, a tour guide in her early 30s who was working at the Hotel Capri when a bomb ripped through the lobby on July 12, 1997.

``We are accustomed to security,'' a shaken Cabeza testified. ``This is a sensation that no Cuban has experienced for the past 30 years.''

Pino also hammered away at Cruz Leon, weaving a meticulous web of evidence that showed him as a wanton terrorist who set off bombs in hotel lobbies crowded with people.

He repeatedly asked witnesses about the 200 children who were attending a party at the Capri when the bomb went off, and whether they had experienced ``panic'' in the wake of the blasts.

Marisol Visoza, a young woman who was sitting about three feet from the bomb that Cruz Leon confessed to detonating at the Nacional Hotel on July 12, showed the court a long scar where a piece of shrapnel gouged her left cheek.

Cruz Leon was sitting near her just five minutes before the timed bomb went off, she testified, ``and he could have said something, to move or something. But now my face is scarred for my whole life.''

Defense attorney Daniel Rippe got one witness to acknowledge that the children were in a room far from the blast and escaped injury, but spent much time questioning three state psychiatrists who interviewed Cruz Leon.

They described the Salvadoran, who claims he carried out the bombings for money and not politics, as an imaginative young man who once compared himself to Stallone in The Specialist, a movie about an explosives expert.

During one interview Cruz Leon described himself as ``a crazy adventurer'' given to risky activities like parachuting and motorcycle racing, psychiatrist Ernesto Perez Gonzalez said.

Rippe pounced on the comment, asking him whether Cruz Leon's adventurous streak could have kept him from a proper understanding of the risks that he ran setting off bombs in Cuba. The island's state security agents are notoriously efficient.

``It could have indeed affected his decision -- like any character trait in any person affects their decisions,'' Perez said. ``But we found absolutely no trace of any abnormal mental problems.''

Prosecution officials said their promised evidence on allegations that the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation and exile bomber Luis Posada Carriles were behind the bombings would be unveiled today or Thursday, which is expected to be the last day of the trial.