SAN SALVADOR -- Half out of her mind with worry, tension hunching her shoulders, Yohana Flores still has to laugh at the announcement from Havana that her boyfriend is the international terrorist who has been planting bombs in Cuba.

``If you only knew Raul, you'd know how crazy that is,'' she said, a smile easing the anxious lines in her face. ``He's not some great warrior. When he tried to take parachuting lessons, he broke his leg on the third jump.''

The Cuban government announced last week that Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, a 26-year-old washout from the Salvadoran military academy, had been arrested in connection with six bombings targeting the island's tourist industry.

On prime time Cuban TV Monday night, an Interior Ministry official gave details of Cruz Leon's arrest, saying that traces of C-4 plastic explosive had been found in his hotel room, in his clothing and under his fingernails.

The portrait of Cruz Leon that emerged in a series of interviews with his friends, co-workers and family members makes him seem, in many ways, an unlikely candidate for the role or a bomber: an easy-going, apolitical young man who enjoyed squiring visiting show-business celebrities around town for a San Salvador promoter.

But other details -- particularly a sudden interest in Havana that Cruz Leon developed this summer -- suggest there might be more to the picture.

The interest in Cuba was so consuming that he took two vacations there in six weeks -- vacations that placed him in Havana when six of the bombs went off.

On the other hand, note his friends and family, there were three bombing attempts before Cruz Leon ever set foot in Cuba. And they scoff at Havana's claims that he admitted detonating six bombs for $4,500 apiece as a U.S.-trained triggerman for ``Miami counter-revolutionary groups.''

``I don't believe a word of this,'' said Flores, 25, who has been dating Cruz Leon for 10 years.

An adventurous streak

Certainly there was little in Cruz Leon's life to suggest he would wind up in a Havana jail. The eldest of four children of a middle-class family that operates a small jewelry store in the blue-collar suburb of Santa Tecla, he was an indifferent student with no apparent ambition.

He did, however, occasionally show a nascent adventurous streak. ``I was very surprised when he told me he was going to enter the Salvadoran military academy,'' said his mother, Ester. ``He had never talked about the army.''

El Salvador was still in the midst of a bloody civil war on Jan. 1, 1991, when Raul entered the academy. ``I knew it would be a long time before he had to go into combat, but I worried every single minute,'' she recalled.

Raul enjoyed the academy and did well for the first few months. But family members emphatically denied Cuban government reports that he was sent to Georgia, where the United States operates an academy to train Latin American soldiers. U.S. and Salvadoran military officials support the family's story.

Barely 10 months after entering the academy, Raul injured his back and elbow in a fall. Hospitalized for several weeks, he fell behind, and his mother pounced on the opportunity to get him into a safer line of work. ``It was my idea for him to quit,'' she said. ``I suggested it, and finally he agreed.'' The discharge was granted on the last day of 1991.

Raul enrolled in a private military academy, but his grades started slipping again -- ``from laziness,'' his 25-year-old sister Yanira said bluntly -- and he dropped out after a year. He surprised the family once more by signing up for a civilian parachuting course, but gave it up after he broke his leg.

Provided TV security

In 1993 he got a job on a security force that guarded television shows as they taped on location around San Salvador. ``It wasn't real security work, not carrying a gun or anything,'' said his sister. ``Mostly he just kept girls from bothering the stars.''

That soon led to a job with Salvadoran promoter Mario Villacorta, who contracted with Raul to ferry visiting performers around the city.

``It was something that fascinated him,'' said his mother, thumbing through a pile of snapshots that showed a grinning Raul with his arm draped over the shoulders of pretty Latin singing stars like Selena, Lorena Herrera and Thalia.

It was a show business friendship that set him on the road to a Havana jail. In June of this year, Raul was assigned to help a visiting Mexican circus. He befriended two Cuban performers, a contortionist whose stage name was Richard Richard and an acrobat who billed herself as Yamilet.

``They were all great friends,'' said a co-worker.

So great, said Raul's girlfriend Flores, that the Cubans suggested he take a vacation on the island. On July 8, Raul headed for Havana. Four days later, bombs exploded in the city's Nacional and Capri hotels.

Raul didn't mention the bombs when he returned on July 14. He hardly spoke of Cuba at all.

``He brought me some souvenirs, he mentioned some places he visited, but I don't remember too much about it, except that it was nothing out of the ordinary,'' said Flores.

His family said several details about the trip were reported incorrectly by local media last week during the confused hours after Raul's arrest was announced.

They said reporters misquoted them in saying that the trips were arranged through a Cuban travel agent in El Salvador named Orlando Ramos. Ramos is actually a tour guide in Cuba. ``I found one of his business cards in some papers Raul left here,'' his sister said. ``I called him in Havana, and he said he had met my brother during the trip in July, but he didn't know anything more than that.''

Returned to Cuba

One thing is certain: Raul said he enjoyed the trip to Cuba so much that he was going to go back as soon as possible.

``He had been working very, very hard recently, so it was normal to want a vacation,'' said Flores.

On Saturday night, Aug. 30, his mother packed a suitcase for him -- ``just the clothes he would need for one week, no bombs,'' she said, summoning a sad smile. Sunday he flew to Havana through Guatemala. Monday he called Flores.

``He said he arrived fine,'' she recalled. `` `Tell mama I'm fine, and I'll call back Wednesday or Thursday.' ''

The call never came. On Thursday, four bombs went off around Havana, killing an Italian-Canadian businessman. And by the end of the day, Raul was under arrest, though his family wouldn't learn of it until they saw it on television six days later.

``The rest,'' said his mother, ``has been a nightmare.''

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald