Father can fetch Elian alone: Castro

HAVANA, APRIL 3. The Cuban President, Mr. Fidel Castro, said yesterday the father of Cuban shipwreck boy Elian Gonzalez was ready to fly to the U.S. `absolutely alone' today but only if he could take his son home with him immediately.

Mr. Castro said Mr. Juan Miguel Gonzalez had made the offer in reaction to objections raised in the U.S. to an earlier Cuban Government proposal that a 30-member delegation should accompany him to take custody of the boy.

The Cuban leader, reading a statement on national television, quoted Elian's father as saying: ``If it's a case of handing the boy over for his immediate return to Cuba, I am ready to leave tomorrow, Monday, April 3, absolutely alone.''

``Only the U.S. Government can say if it prefers that option,'' Mr. Castro said.

But the Cuban leader, still quoting Mr. Gonzalez, added that if it was a case of waiting two months in the U.S. for a U.S. appeals court to rule on Elian's case, the father and his family preferred to be accompanied by a delegation including doctors, psychiatrists and a group of Elian's Cuban school classmates.

- Reuters

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Section  : International
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