BY TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE

His lawyer has likened him to Alice in Wonderland, an unsuspecting Cuban farmer who has fallen into the rabbit hole of Miami's contentious political landscape.

The state of Florida has portrayed him as an uncaring father who did little to protect his child from a mentally unstable mother.

Rafael Izquierdo, however, describes his situation in simple terms, repeating one phrase like a mantra before a bank of television reporters and other media people outside a Miami-Dade County courthouse last week.

''I'm her father,'' he said. ``A father belongs with his child, a child belongs with her father.''

The fitness of Izquierdo's parenting is the subject of a contentious custody dispute that pits the farmworker from the small central Cuban town of Cabaiguán against a nationally known former sports agent who built a career spiriting Cuban baseball players away from the island, often under the noses of their communist handlers.

At the center of the trial, set to begin Monday, is Izquierdo's 4-year-old daughter, whose mother, Elena Perez, left the island with the girl and her son two years ago -- and whose mental distress and subsequent suicide attempt set the stage for the state's intervention in the case. Attorneys for the mother are expected to question whether the state terminated the mother's custody of the girl.

Perez, Izquierdo's former girlfriend, left the island in 2005 along with the two children and her husband at the time, Jesus Melendres. Izquierdo gave permission for her to bring his daughter.

But he says he never gave up his rights as her father.

''I let her go, just like any other Cuban who comes here,'' he said. ``When I let her come, it was with the understanding that she was coming with her mother. Now she belongs with me.''

Izquierdo, 32, says he grows plantain and malanga in Cabaiguán, and occasionally fishes in a nearby lake, and lives with his parents.

RECONCILED, MARRIED

He is currently in Miami with his wife, Yanara Alvarez, and their 6-year-old daughter. Izquierdo fathered the child at the center of the dispute during a split with Alvarez, with whom he later married, he said.

The couple and the two half-sisters have spent their court-approved visits eating ice cream, going to parks and taking in an occasional movie

But despite some brief happy moments, he says, the visits are heart-wrenching.

''It hurts all of us when it's time to say goodbye,'' he said. 'I go away in the car and all I can think about is, `Man, how can you just leave your daughter?' ''

Florida's Department of Children & Families maintains that Joe Cubas, the former agent and Coral Gables businessman, and his wife should be the permanent caregivers of the girl.

Cubas and his wife, Maria, have been the girl's foster family for a year and a half, and have formally adopted the girl's half brother, a 13-year-old who the Cubases say should not be separated from his little sister.

The case has put Izquierdo in the media spotlight, with commentators on Spanish-language radio parsing his words and his attire, largely dress pants and button-down shirts.

''The problem is that they expect him to show up with a big sombrero and a machete, with a cigar dangling from his mouth,'' said Magda Montiel Davis, who, along with her husband, Miami immigration attorney Ira Kurzban, is representing Izquierdo pro bono, for free. ``They think that he's just going to be the stereotype of a dumb Cuban farmer. That's not the case.''

Kurzban has represented the Cuban government in the past but he and his wife say they have received no payment from Cuban officials in this case.

Montiel Davis said that Izquierdo and his family are staying in a Cuban-American woman's Brickell condo and that his plane tickets were also donated by a benefactor in the United States.

''Definitely not the Cuban government,'' she said.

Izquierdo has steadfastly maintained that he had no reason to believe that his daughter was in jeopardy, or that his former girlfriend was in desperate straits.

It wasn't until December 2005, eight months after Perez and her children had left the island, that he received word through friends of the family in Cabaiguán that Perez had tried to kill herself.

''That was the first I heard of any trouble, any problems,'' he said.

Lawyers for the state have portrayed Izquierdo as a father who had little contact with his child while she was in Cuba, and even less after her mother removed her from the island.

ABUSE ALLEGATIONS

Their case may also hinge on allegations against Izquierdo, made by fellow residents in Cabaiguán, who have said that Perez told them he beat her, and that he frequently referred to her as ``una loca'' -- a crazy woman. The allegations are outlined in a motion submitted by attorneys for the state.

The motion asks the court for assistance in obtaining permission to travel to the island, filed in May. The state's attorneys list several witnesses and a rundown of their testimony, including that of the girl's frequent baby sitter, Ester Melendres, sister of Perez's husband. In the documents, Melendres said Perez was often marked by bruises ''caused by domestic violence perpetrated by the Father,'' including an incident where Izquierdo ``beat the Mother's face with a coat hanger.''

Melendres also said that Izquierdo ''did not want Ms. Perez to carry her pregnancy with [the girl] to term,'' according to the motion.

Perez denies that she was the victim of any abuse.

Izquierdo's attorneys say the witnesses are not credible and have frequently changed their stories.

''It's total malarkey,'' Montiel Davis said.