CUBA COMMUTES ANOTHER BOMBER'S DEATH SENTENCE
December 7, 2010: For the second time this month, the Cuban Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of a Salvadoran man convicted of plotting a series of Havana hotel bombings in 1997, leaving just one person left on the island's death row.
Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena's sentence was reduced to 30 years in prison, according to a story posted on the state-run Cubadebate Web site.
The court last week commuted the death sentence of another Salvadoran man convicted in the case, Ernesto Cruz Leon, giving him 30 years in prison as well.
Both men admitted guilt in the bombings, which killed an Italian tourist and wounded 11 other people including seven foreigners. They were convicted in 1999.
The plot was allegedly organized and financed by Cuban-Venezuelan Luis Posada Carriles - a former CIA operative and one of Cuba's most-wanted men, who is also accused in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner and in a series of attempts to assassinate former Cuban President Fidel Castro.
The only prisoner remaining on death row is Cuban-American Humberto Eladio Real, a member of an anti-Fidel Castro group who was convicted of killing a policeman in 1994. (Sources: Ap, 07/12/2010)
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