BY GAIL EPSTEIN NIEVES

 Calling the recent guilty verdicts against five Cuban spies ``revolting injustice,'' the government of Fidel Castro on Wednesday attacked the trial, the jurors and U.S. law officers as partners in a ``sinister process.''

 It praised the convicted men as heroes with ``deep moral and patriotic convictions.''

 In its first official response to the verdicts, posted on the website of Granma -- the official newspaper of Cuba's Communist Party -- the government also included a lengthy ``message to the American people'' purportedly written by the convicted spies from their Miami prison cells after the June 8 verdict.

 ``The defendants in this trial are in no way repentant of what we have done to defend our country,'' the letter concluded. ``We declare ourselves non-guilty and simply take comfort in the fact that we have honored our duty to our people and our homeland.''

 REGULAR CRITICISMS

 Cuba-watchers responded with bemusement, saying that the article and letter, while unusual in nature, merely parroted criticisms pronounced regularly by the Castro
 regime.

 ``They indict the American judicial system, which is what they always do,'' said Joe Garcia, director of the Cuban American National Foundation. ``Theirs is a system where there is no rule of law, and they're attacking the United States?''

 There was no way to independently confirm whether the letter was, in fact, written by one or all of the spies. The men are allowed to have visits from their lawyers and, less frequently, from some relatives and friends -- any of whom could have taken a letter out of the federal correctional facility and gotten its contents to Cuba.

 Jack Blumenfeld, lawyer for Antonio Guerrero, said he didn't know anything about the letter until he read it on the Internet on Wednesday; nor did he know who wrote it.

 ``But whether it's a real letter from them or not, it reflects what they've been saying for two years: `We are just Cuban patriots, we weren't here to harm the United States, we wanted to expose the reality of the terrorism against our island which we believe comes from exile organizations in Miami,' '' Blumenfeld said.

 DEFENSE PRONG

 The idea of spying as a means to protect Cuba from exile-sponsored terrorism was a major defense prong at trial. Blumenfeld said he disagreed with Cuba's position that the trial was ``rigged'' and ``unfair,'' but he still thinks the judge erred by not granting defense motions to move the trial from Miami.

 A jury convicted the men on all counts, finding them guilty of being unregistered foreign agents and using false documents.

 In addition to Guerrero, the others were Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González and René González.

 Three of them were convicted for espionage conspiracy, and one, Hernández, was convicted of murder conspiracy in the 1996 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes. Four men died in the air assault. The spies' sentencing is set for the fall.

 A State Department official said the purported spy letter was predictable in its defense and clearly aimed at a Cuban audience.

 ``Presumably that's in the job description for spies: they believe in what they do,'' the official said.

 IN THREE LANGUAGES

 Granma released the text simultaneously in Spanish, English and French in its online services. The text was distributed by Prensa Latina, the official news agency, and
 AIN, Cuba's national information agency.

 ``Everything that happens in Cuba happens for a political purpose,'' said the official, who asked not to be named. ``The political purpose in this case is to somehow rally the people of Cuba, telling them, `Look, we're protecting you' '' with our spy networks.

 José Cohen, a former Cuban intelligence agent now living in Miami, agreed, saying the letter had to have been written by the regime to remind Cubans that the government loyally stands by its agents -- even when those agents are caught ``in the entrails of the monster,'' as the Granma headline put it.

 Castro also might be concerned about damage control, Cohen said.

 ``At this moment the regime doesn't have any control over these spies. They want to try to increase their morale, because the regime doesn't want them to collaborate with the FBI. Then Fidel Castro would lose even more control over them.''

 Herald translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report

                                    © 2001