COMPILED BY MADELINE BARO DIAZ
 Online News Reporter

 A federal appeals court today denied a request by the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez, seeking access to the boy or an outside guardian for him.

 The court accepted instead the government's offer of regular reports from a psychiatrist and a social worker.

 The ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was handed down this afternoon.

 In a brief order, the court denied a series of requests from the 6-year-old Cuban boy's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, whose family cared for Elian for five months until federal agents returned him to his father on Saturday.

 The 11th Circuit continued its order barring Elian from any site in this country that has diplomatic immunity --- a move designed to keep him out of the custody of Cuban diplomats.

 On Tuesday, the Miami relatives had asked the court, which is now weighing whether to reinstate a claim of political asylum they filed on Elian's behalf, for a series of orders giving them access to Elian, who is in the Washington, D.C. area with his father.

 The relatives asked that they, their attorneys and their doctors be given "regular and reasonable access to him'' until the court rules on the appeal, or that the court name an outside guardian to look after him during that time.

 The three-judge panel denied all those requests.

 "The government has offered to supply the court with biweekly reports from a psychiatrist, retained by the government to monitor and examine'' the boy, and from a social worker, to be hired to monitor his care, the court said. "The court accepts these offers.''

 On Wednesday, Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, had asked the appeals to bounce the boy's great-uncle from the lawsuit seeking a political asylum hearing for the child. A hearing in the case is set for May 11.

 Gonzalez asked the court to allow him to intervene in the 6-year-old's immigration case so that he can take the place of the boy's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez.

 The father's 21-page pleading, filed by his high-powered Washington, D.C., attorney Gregory Craig, argued that only he can legally and morally represent Elian's best interests -- not the great-uncle.

 Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, today called Elian's purported request for political asylum "preposterous" and said the appeals court should "immediately dismiss the whole thing and put an end to the proceedings, for the sake of human decency and family values.''

 Interviewed by phone from Havana by a Miami talk-radio host, Alarcon gave short shrift to the asylum bid filed earlier this year.

 Elian "didn't sign anything, obviously. He just drew his name (on the application form) but didn't know what was going on or what those papers were," Alarcon told Francisco Aruca on Babel's Guide, broadcast over WAXY (790 AM).

 "Drawing the five letters of his name on a paper is not signing. Besides, the document was in English, a language the boy doesn't understand -- not to mention all the legalistic language. That's preposterous!," Alarcon said.

 The Miami relatives are back in South Florida today after spending several days in Washington, D.C., where they were rebuffed in their several attempts to see Elian.

 Elian is staying with his father, stepmother and half brother at the Wye Plantation, a privately owned compound on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

 Four of Elian's playmates, accompanied by one parent each, were expected to arrive today for a two-week stay. Elian's kindergarten teacher and his cousin arrived in Washington yesterday.

 Meanwhile, the Justice Department revealed today that the Elian Gonzalez case has cost it half a million dollars, while Attorney General Janet Reno today continued to defend the raid by federal agents that removed the boy from the home of his Miami relatives.

 Reno said agents seizing Elian had to have a "show of force, not a use of force, to show we were in control'' and that the pre-dawn hours of Saturday were "the most appropriate time to take action with the least crowd."

 "This appeared to be the safest time possible to effect the transfer,'' she said during her weekly news conference this morning.

 When the agents raided the home, they met resistance, according to Reno. People outside the home "tried to throw ropes around the agents as they came up to the house" and the agent who was carrying Elian out of the house was grabbed as they headed toward a waiting van.

 "She, I am told, almost went down,'' Reno said.

 Reno also said relatives gave officials no other choice, since they kept moving the "goal post" in negotiations aimed at achieving a peaceful transfer of custody of Elian to his father.

 A psychiatrist who advised the government interviewed Elian earlier this week and determined he likely suffered no lasting harm from the raid.

 Justice officials also said the Elian Gonzalez case, including the raid, had cost more than $578,000 from Thanksgiving Day, when Elian was found, through Monday. This preliminary estimate does not include the costs of the family's stay at Andrews Air Force Base from Saturday until Tuesday.

 The largest figure was $374,000 for the Immigration and Naturalization Service and included the cost of training and housing 131 immigration agents who participated in the raid and Elian's government airplane flight to Washington.

 U.S. marshals, who provided 20 deputies for the raid and security for Elian's father in Washington and the entire family since Saturday, spent $161,000. The figures included overtime but not regular salaries which would have been paid anyway. Other amounts were spent on legal work, mediators and conciliators, and expenses for psychiatric consultants.

 Herald staff writer Jay Weaver, Herald translator Renato Perez and Herald news services contributed to this article.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald