Men work in the fields in Quivican, south of Havana April 4, 2008. REUTERS/Enrique De La Osa

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Miami jury has awarded almost $253 million in a wrongful death case against Cuba, the biggest such penalty to date against the communist government, local media reported on Saturday.

The Miami Herald said the Miami-Dade circuit court jury delivered its verdict on Friday after a civil trial that began on Wednesday. The decision was not available on the court’s Web site on Saturday.

The Cuban government chose not to be represented in the courtroom, the Miami Herald said.

The case involved Rafael del Pino Siero, a U.S. citizen who was a friend of Fidel Castro but turned against him after the bearded revolutionary took power in 1959, the Herald said.

It said Del Pino Siero, who broke with Castro over suspicions he was a communist, was captured while trying to help a Cuban escape to Miami in July 1959.

He died in his Cuban prison cell 18 years later at age 51, leaving behind in Miami two children, Rafael del Pino Jr. and his sister Milagros Suarez.

The jury award for Del Pino Jr. and Suarez was the largest such award handed down in the United States against Cuba since a court awarded $188 million to the relatives of three people killed when two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes were shot down in 1996 by a Cuban fighter.

The del Pino relatives are unlikely to be able to actually get their hands on much money as Cuban assets frozen in the United States have dwindled to almost nothing.