HAVANA (Reuters) -- Cuba blamed "murderous" U.S. immigration policy on
                  Friday for the recent tragedy of two Cuban brothers whose corpses were found
                  mutilated by sharks after an illegal attempt to reach Florida by boat.

                  The ruling Communist Party daily, Granma, reported the news to Cubans in a
                  front-page editorial that insisted its root cause was the 1966 Cuban Adjustment
                  Law, which offers preferential treatment to Cuban migrants who touch U.S.
                  shore.

                  "This is yet another disastrous and shadowy story
                  of the fruits of the murderous Cuban Adjustment
                  Act, and the criminal and ever more insustainable
                  policy of U.S. governments against Cuba," said
                  Granma, whose editorials are often penned or at least approved by President
                  Fidel Castro.

                  The bodies of the brothers, from the central Cuban province of Matanzas, were
                  spotted earlier in August in the lower Florida Keys. One of the corpses was
                  dragged away by sharks before U.S. Coast Guard crews could reach it.

                  Granma slammed U.S. authorities for the lack of public information about that
                  case, and other recent dramatic stories of Cubans trying to make the perilous
                  90-mile (145 km) voyage.

                  "They refuse to give any news about Cuban citizens who, egged on by that
                  monstrous law, lose their lives, suffer accidents, are kidnapped or disappear
                  without sign," it said. All Cuba's information came from media reports, it said.

                  Referring to other recent cases, Granma demanded to know what had happened
                  to a Cuban girl found unconscious with 36 other migrants on an island in the
                  Bahamas, or a pregnant woman taken to land after being intercepted by the U.S.
                  Coast Guard.

                  "It's a diabolical policy of totally hiding all information," the Communist Party
                  newspaper said.

                  Since the return of 6-year-old shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez after a
                  seven-month custody dispute, Cuba has focused its political guns on U.S.
                  immigration policy.

                  In an ongoing campaign of daily state TV round-tables and weekly mass rallies,
                  Cuba is also targeting the U.S. economic embargo, which it says causes the
                  hardship that is also a factor behind the desperate migration bids.

                  The latest rally was set for Saturday in the eastern zone of Santiago de Cuba
                  where, according to a state communique, "13,000 compatriots will demand the
                  elimination of the murderous Adjustment Act and the genocidal blockade."

                  Castro has frequently blamed the law and the embargo as the root causes of the
                  saga of Elian -- found at sea in November 1999, after a disastrous migrant trip
                  that killed his mother -- and of the continuing exodus of other boat-people.

                  Whereas in the past, many of the hundreds of Cubans leaving the Caribbean
                  island each year went on flimsy boats and makeshift rafts, most now go on
                  high-powered speedboats sent by smuggling rings in Florida with prior
                  coordination.

                  U.S. officials, and local dissidents, say the exodus is primarily due to the Castro
                  government's failed socialist economy, its restriction of basic liberties, such as
                  the right to travel freely, and Cubans' desire to be reunited with families in
                  Miami.