By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday , April 20, 2000

Attorney General Janet Reno convened a meeting of senior Justice Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service
officials this morning to discuss what action to take in light of yesterday's appeals court ruling on the Elian Gonzalez case.

Reno yesterday repeated her "determination" to reunite Elian with his Cuban father. She said that the court ruling, which barred
the boy from leaving the country while his Miami relatives appeal INS refusal to consider political asylum for him, did not
prevent her from enforcing the government's order that he be placed in his father's custody.

The question now is what it has been for many weeks – whether the government will remove Elian from the home of his
Miami great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, who has defied the custody order and refused to voluntarily relinquish him.

As the government examined its options, spokesmen for both sides of the family exchanged accusations and demands.

Appearing on NBC's "Today" show, Gregory B. Craig, the attorney for father Juan Miguel Gonzalez, said that yesterday's
court ruling had decided "an issue that was never really in dispute." The father, who flew to Washington from Havana two
weeks ago, "agreed many weeks ago that he would be prepared to stay during the pendancy of the appeal."

Craig said that "the law requires" Elian to be returned to his father "as soon as possible. Immediately."

Asked whether the father would respond to appeals from the Miami relatives to hold a "family meeting" to decide Elian's fate,
Craig said that he would consider such an option only after custody of Elian was transferred. "The only meeting we really care
about is the reunion with the son. This is not an issue about reuniting the Gonzalez family. It's an issue of reuniting the Gonzalez
father with the Gonzalez son.

"After that occurs, the family can talk, get together and work out any kind of arrangements they want. But this is absolutely
something that's not negotiable, because the law requires it and the father is entitled to have custody of his son."

Craig called on the "government of the United States to live up to its commitment to this father, that if he came to this country
they would transfer custody of his son to them."

On ABC's "Good Morning America," Miami lawyer Kendall Coffey said that if the father wants to see his son, he should come
to Miami, since Elian is afraid to fly due to concern that the aircraft would take him to Cuba.

Back on NBC, another attorney for the Miami relatives, Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, said that the family wanted not only a
pre-transfer meeting with the father, but an independent psychological evaluation of Elian to determine whether it was in his best
interests for them to be reunited.

"With the allegations that the boy has made ... with respect to the father's temperament and past behavior, you know, this is the
opportunity to evaluate the boy professionally. That's what we do any time that a child accuses an adult of wrongdoing."

He said it made no sense to "put the boy at risk" with his father "while that evaluative process is taking place."

The relatives say the boy has told them he is afraid of what they have said is the father's violent temper. Evidence of abuse has
been aired only recently by the relatives, and has been rejected by the Justice Department as hearsay from Cuban Americans in
Miami who say they once were neighbors and acquaintances of the Gonzalez family in their hometown of Cardenas, Cuba.

Asked why such allegations had only recently surfaced, Garcia-Pedrosa said that Lazaro Gonzalez had earlier "forbade it" out
of consideration for his nephew, Elian's father. "I think American public opinion would be different today had we been
permitted by our client to raise these issues at the beginning of the case."

In response, Craig said that "there's no evidence whatsoever that this father abused that child in any way, shape or form. And
it's outrageous, at this 11th hour, to raise that issue. There's a presumption and there is a fact that this is a good father; not just a
good father but a wonderful father. And for them to be raising these allegations at this late date is just simply outrageous."

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