By Milt Milson

Cuban exile terrorist Humberto Lopez, Jr., was sentenced today to 4 1/2 years in a federal prison for illegal firearms possession and bail-jumping.

The courtroom was packed with fellow Cuban exiles who sat hushed as Lopez said: "I trust in the democracy, freedom and system of this great country. That is all."

U.S. District Court judge Joe Eaton pronounced the sentence after hearing impassioned pleas for probation on behalf of the 33-year-old Lopez.

Eaton handed down a three-year sentence on each of five counts of illegal possession of unregistered firearms, which included a 20-mm cannon and .50-caliber and .30-caliber machineguns.

The three-year sentences are to run concurrently, Eaton said. But he added a 1 1/2-year sentence on the bail-jumping, to which Lopez, in a surprise move, had pleaded "no contest" before Eaton Wednesday.

Lopez, who lost an eye and part of one hand in the explosion of a bomb he was making in March of last year, had fled to the Dominican Republic before he could be sentenced on the firearms charge, of which a jury convicted him.

In pleading for probation, attorneys Melvyn Greenspahn and Gino Negretti depicted Lopez today as a patriot, a feverent anti-communist who had been trained to be a fighter by the CIA before, as Negretti said, "the winds of change" brought change to politics.

Said the judge: "You cannot have a law and say that this law is not applicable to patriots."

After the judge pronounced sentence and left the bench, the crowd of Cubans stood and sang the national anthem of their homeland.

The conviction for possession of firearms is subject to appeal; the bail-jumping adjudication is not.