By Suzanne Harrison
MIAMI, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Lawyers for a U.S. citizen sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban prison for promoting an armed uprising said on Friday they would try to verify reports that he did not want to appeal the sentence.
Walter Van Der Veer, 52, was tried in Havana Nov. 6 after being arrested there in August 1996.
The Cuban court handed down the 15-year sentence Wednesday. Cuban prosecutors sought a 20-year jail term after dropping an initial recommendation for the death penalty.
Van Der Veer's U.S.-based attorneys said they would continue efforts to win his freedom and return him to the United States and were concerned that their client did not know he had the right to an appeal.
"We have been advised by the U.S. Interests Section that Van Der Veer was satisfied with his trial and his (Cuban) government-appointed attorney and that he does not wish to appeal his sentence,'' Guy Rubin, one of his U.S. attorneys, told Reuters.
"We currently have no means to verify this information without causing potential harm to our client,'' Rubin said, adding that he was pursuing contacts on the communist-ruled island to verify the claim and determine if Van Der Veer's living conditions were adequate.
Van Der Veer was accused of belonging to a radical anti-communist Cuban exile group and of planning an armed revolt, sabotage and grenade attacks in Cuba.
During trial, his Cuban defense lawyer, Lourdes Jola, argued for a reduced sentence, saying her client had not committed any acts of violence and ended up only distributing home-made leaflets attacking Cuban President Fidel Castro.
One of Van Der Veer's attorneys, former Florida judge Dominick Salfi, attended the trial in Cuba but returned without being allowed to speak to his client. He said earlier this week he was trying to communicate with Van Der Veer through a letter to a U.S. Interests Section representative.
The Interests Section released a statement after the trial expressing concern about the independence of Cuba's judicial system, noting that no witnesses had been produced at trial by Van Der Veer's defense.
Van Der Veer was being held at La Condesa, a special prison for foreigners in Cuba in Havana province. It was not immediately clear whether he would serve his sentence there or at another jail.
Salfi had described Van Der Veer as thin and haggard during the trial. In Florida, Van Der Veer, who is married to a Cuban-born woman, was an usher at the Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables.
Of the sentence, Rubin said: "Under the circumstances, it's better than 20 years and it's better than a firing squad.'' REUTERS
18:59 11-28-97