On March 23, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, a Salvadoran national...

On March 23, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, a Salvadoran national who confessed earlier in March in Havana's Provincial Tribunal, was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to death for a string of 1997 bombings in hotels and a restaurant, which killed an Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo, and wounded 11 people (see Cuba). After the sentence, San Salvador's archbishop, Fernando Saenz Lacalle, sent immediately a letter to Cuban President Fidel Castro asking that the man's life be spared. The sentence was appealed automatically to the Supreme Court, and must be ratified by Cuba's ruling Council of State.