http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/27/cuban.custody.ap/index.html

Judge: Cuban farmer should get daughter back

September 27, 2007 CNN/AP (USA)---The father of a 5-year-old Cuban girl at the center of an international custody battle did not abandon or neglect her, so he should get her back, a judge ruled Thursday.

Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen said she would not immediately return the girl to her father, Cuban farmer Rafael Izquierdo, who wants to take her back to Cuba.

The girl went into foster care after her mother brought her to the U.S. in 2005 and then attempted suicide days before Christmas. She has been living with foster parents in Miami for the past 18 months and they want to keep the girl here. The Florida Department of Children & Families said Izquierdo abandoned the girl and officials want the girl to stay with her foster parents, Joe and Maria Cubas, a wealthy Cuban-American couple. The state's attorneys said removing the girl after such a long time would cause her serious emotional trauma.

Cohen said she would hold a follow-up hearing to listen to the state's arguments, but urged the department to "take the blindfold off and see the forest for the trees."

Izquierdo has denied that he abandoned his daughter and has professed his desire to return with her to Cuba.

"The court cannot deny Izquierdo custody of his child," Cohen said.

The father, foster parents and mother were all in court as the judge read her 47-page ruling over several hours. The judge said Izquierdo's efforts to regain his daughter once she was put in foster care "were not marginal for a man of his circumstances."

"He has diligently participated in what must seem to him a mysterious and daunting legal process. While geographically, Cuba is only 90 miles from the United States shores, the two countries are philosophically and politically worlds apart," Cohen said