Cuban castaway Elian Gonzalez’s Miami relatives took their battle to keep the child in the United States to an Atlanta appeals court on Thursday, arguing the boy should be granted a political asylum hearing against the wishes of his father who wants to take him back to Cuba.

Cuban castaway Elian Gonzalez’s Miami

relatives took their battle to keep the child in the United

States to an Atlanta appeals court on Thursday, arguing the boy

should be granted a political asylum hearing against the wishes

of his father who wants to take him back to Cuba.In an argument that essentially put the government of Cuban

President Fidel Castro on trial, Kendall Coffey, the lawyer for

Elian’s Miami relatives, suggested the boy would face a life of

oppression and brainwashing if he returned to the island.“There is no way a regime that is obsessed with this case

… is going to allow Elian to walk around and say he loves this

country (United States),” said Coffey, who added the boy would

be forced by Cuban authorities to denounce his dead mother as a

traitor. “This child is going to be purged.”

As the muffled cries of street protesters reverberated in

the somber courtroom, a three-judge panel from the 11th U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals peppered Coffey, lawyers for the U.S.

government, and for his Cuban father with questions about the

U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service’s decision to deny

Elian, 6, an asylum hearing because of his age.The INS ruling, upheld in a Miami court, cleared the way for

the boy to be reunited with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez,

who wants to return to Cuba with Elian.

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