HAVANA, 3 (AP) - A group of visiting American attorneys announced their support Friday for Juan Miguel Gonzalez, father of the 6-year-old Cuban boy at the center of an international custody battle.
``He has lost his mother,'' Dean Hubbard, spokesman for the visiting labor lawyers, said of Elian Gonzalez. ``To separate him from his father and his grandmothers is cruel.''
Hubbard, of New York City, spoke after he and members of the National Lawyers Guild met with Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly and the communist government's lead man on U.S. relations.
Guild members have spent a week in Cuba meeting with Cuban attorneys and studying this country's labor law.
They also met with Gonzalez, who expressed gratitude for their support.
``They have not implemented the decision and I still do not have my son,'' said Gonzalez, referring to the Jan. 5 ruling by Commissioner Doris Meissner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service that Elian should be returned to his father in Cuba.
Resolution of the case has been delayed in the courts while Elian's Miami relatives seek to block the boy's return to his communist homeland.
Elian was rescued at sea Nov. 25 after his mother and 10 others perished when their boat capsized en route from Cuba to the United States.
He became the subject of an international tug-of-war, with his father demanding that the child be returned to him and their relatives in Miami fighting to keep him in the United States.
AP-NY-03-03-00 1422EST
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
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