BY KARL ROSS

A Cuban human rights activist, jailed for hatching plans to honor the late Brothers to the Rescue fliers, has lapsed into a coma after a prolonged hunger strike, according to sources monitoring his health.

Sources described as ''delicate'' the condition of Leonardo Miguel Bruzón Avila, imprisoned without trial since Feb. 23, 2002, the eve of a protest he was organizing to commemorate the death of the four Miami exiles in 1996.

'He said he was going to start an indefinite hunger strike called `Liberty or Death,' '' journalist María del Carmen Carro said in a telephone interview Wednesday from Havana. ``Other prisoners joined him, but they gave up.''

Carro said Bruzón Avila, who began his hunger strike on Oct. 10, lapsed into a coma on Tuesday. He decided to refuse even liquids in February, the second anniversary of his arrest. His mother told sources Bruzón had lost teeth due to malnutrition.

''He wanted to have his day in court or be liberated,'' Carro said.

Bruzón Avila, 48, has staged numerous hunger strikes in the past, causing outcry from Amnesty International and Cuban exile groups. This is the first time he has lost consciousness, sources said.

Carro said she received word from Bruzón Avila's family early Tuesday that he had fallen into a coma at the Salvador Allende Hospital in Havana.

She said she was told his blood pressure was low and his vital signs weak.

Ninoska Pérez-Castellón, spokeswoman for the Miami-based Cuban Liberty Council, said Cuban authorities frequently neglect political prisoners.

''We've denounced this so many times,'' she said. ``All they had to do was make sure he gets real medical attention, and they denied him that.''