HAVANA (Reuters) -- Cuba, pursuing a largely symbolic domestic lawsuit
                  against Washington for 40 years of economic sanctions, declared the U.S.
                  government "guilty" on Saturday and ordered it to pay $121 billion in compensation.

                  Washington had ignored the suit, which was filed in a Cuban court in January by
                  pro-government groups representing different sectors of Cuban society. U.S.
                  officials dismissed it privately as having little international legal weight.

                  The Cuban lawsuit sought compensation for direct and indirect economic losses
                  it said were caused by the long-running U.S. economic embargo. It also
                  denounced aggression against Cuba it alleged was organised, carried out and
                  promoted by the U.S. government.

                  Cuba's Communist Party daily Granma published the court's decision on
                  Saturday in a special 12-page supplement entitled "Guilty." "We rule ... against
                  the government of the United States of America," the five-member panel of
                  judges said.

                  The ruling, which noted the accused party had sent no defence attorneys,
                  ordered Washington to pay $121 billion in compensation to the Cuban people.

                  The decision followed a similar case last year in which the same Havana court
                  upheld a $181.1 billion compensation claim against Washington for deaths and
                  injuries blamed on the 40 years of U.S. hostility toward Cuba.

                  Foreign diplomats viewed both cases as part of a stepped-up political offensive
                  by President Fidel Castro's government aimed at trying to change hostile U.S.
                  policy towards Cuba.

                  This year's anti-embargo lawsuit became merged with Castro's nationwide
                  patriotic crusade to seek the return of six-year-old Cuban shipwreck boy Elian
                  Gonzalez. Elian is waiting with his father in the United States while an appeals
                  court rules on his future.

                  As part of the Cuban case against the U.S. embargo, dozens of witnesses from
                  all sectors of the Caribbean island's government and society gave hours of public
                  testimony in February and March about alleged economic damages and personal
                  injuries caused by hostile U.S. government actions.

                  In addition to the embargo, the testimony also alleged U.S. aggression in the
                  form of support for internal "armed bands," promotion of foreign infiltrations,
                  subversion, biological war, terrorism and sabotage.

                  The evidence presented against Washington also listed hundreds of plans to
                  assassinate Castro and other Cuban leaders, military and nuclear threats and the
                  failed 1961 CIA- supported Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles.

                  Adding to their symbolic weight, the court proceedings took place in Havana's
                  Revolution Palace, seat of Cuba's government.

                  Cuban leaders defended the lawsuit, saying that although it was unlikely to elicit
                  any payments from Washington it would serve as a reminder to Cubans and the
                  world of how the island had been affected by U.S. government policy since the
                  1959 Cuban Revolution.