BY JAY WEAVER AND ELAINE DE VALLE

 Elian Gonzalez's father doesn't really want the boy returned to Cuba, and told
 relatives in the past that he himself wanted to live in the United States, according
 to sworn statements filed in federal court Thursday by attorneys for the 6-year-old's
 Miami relatives.

 Witnesses also support the attorneys' claim that Elian would face political
 persecution in his communist homeland.

 The documents raise questions about the father's sincerity because they allege
 that Juan Miguel Gonzalez repeatedly expressed a desire to leave Cuba himself.

 ``I know for a fact that Juan Miguel Gonzalez has always wanted to come to the
 United States to live here,'' Yusledis Ortiz, the wife of his cousin, said in her
 statement. She arrived in the United States on June 23 last year.

 Maria Isabel Martell, another cousin, said in her statement she also heard him say
 it: ``When my brother, Alfredo, and my husband left Cuba, Juan Miguel told me,
 in front of his mother and his relatives, that sometime in the future he would come,
 even if it had to be in a tub.''

 Though unsubstantiated by any other evidence, the stories told by relatives of the
 boy's father and others involved in the case often coincide. At least five of the
 witnesses' sworn statements were sealed because they feared their testimony would
 bring harm to relatives still in Cuba.

 Attorneys for the Miami relatives face a bruising legal battle the week of March 6
 with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which found last month that only
 Elian's father in Cuba can speak for his son. And Juan Miguel Gonzalez has said
 repeatedly that he wants his son back home.

 His father already withdrew asylum applications made on his behalf by his
 great-uncle in Miami, Lazaro Gonzalez.

 FREE TO SPEAK?

 But family members and others involved say Juan Miguel Gonzalez cannot speak
 his mind.

 Kilari Anand, president of the Global Peace Initiative, went to Cuba Jan. 31 with
 the intention of helping Juan Miguel reclaim his son. He returned, he says in a
 sworn statement, with a change of heart.

 ``Elian's father is virtually under government house arrest and his public
 comments, living accommodations and travel arrangements are monitored and
 controlled strictly by the Cuban state,'' Anand said in his statement.

 Attorneys also claim that Elian deserves asylum because he has a well-founded
 fear of persecution in the form of political exploitation if he is forced to return.

 Their two-part argument:

 Rafael Lazaro Munero, the man described as Elian's stepfather -- who organized
 the ill-fated voyage where 11 died before Elian was rescued off Florida in an inner
 tube Nov. 25 -- had been persecuted for years by the Cuban government. That
 persecution, they argue, led the Communist Party to question the loyalty of
 Elisabeth Brotons, the boy's mother, who died on that trip. Munero's maternal
 aunt gave sworn testimony to that effect.

 Cuban President Fidel Castro has exploited the custody fight over Elian by turning
 him into a virtual ``poster boy'' for his struggling revolution.

 CUBAN 'HERO'

 ``Although Elian would return to Cuba a `hero' in the eyes of the Cuban
 government, returning Elian to such a cauldron of repression, double-speak and
 forced political ideology would be a grave injustice,'' the attorneys' motion states.

 The attorneys' motion cites Dr. Marta Molina, who worked as a psychologist in
 Cuba for 20 years before coming to the United States Aug. 12, 1999.

 In her affidavit, Molina claims to have seen more than 500 children under the age
 of 16 who had serious psychological problems as a result of their or their parents'
 disagreement with the communist ideology.

 Elian, she said, would be ``immediately taken into seclusion away from the
 mainstream, to reindoctrinate him,'' Molina says.

 ``He will be indoctrinated to believe that in the United States he was very
 unhappy.''

 Such indoctrination, she added, would include his forced repudiation of his
 mother, stepfather and Miami relatives.

 NO RIGHT TO SUE

 But the INS, backed by the Justice Department, claims that Elian's great-uncle,
 Lazaro Gonzalez, has no right to sue the government to even make these claims.

 Moreover, government attorneys argue that the federal court has no authority to
 consider the suit, scheduled for hearings before U.S. District Judge K. Michael
 Moore.

 The INS, which conducted two interviews with Elian's father before reaching its
 Jan. 5 decision that the father is fit, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

 But a Justice Department official said: ``The INS decision was based on the facts
 and the law. There was plenty of information to indicate the close and continuous
 relationship that Juan Miguel Gonzalez had with his son. He clearly had a very
 active role in Elian's upbringing.''

 Attorneys for the boy's Miami relatives said INS made no effort to independently
 verify his claims.

 Many Miami immigration lawyers, along with INS attorneys, concur that federal
 law entitles Elian to an asylum hearing -- but only if his father agrees to one. And
 that is not in store.

 LOCAL CUSTODY

 Attorneys for the Miami relatives counter that Elian's great-uncle Lazaro can
 stand in for the boy's interests because a Miami family court recently granted him
 emergency custody of the Miami court.

 Another problem in the federal court case is the fact that, so far, Elian's father has
 refused to come to the United States to assert his parental rights. But family
 members in Miami have long said that the Cuban government won't let Juan
 Miguel Gonzalez come to Miami with his new wife and toddler son because
 Castro fears he would stay.

 Ortiz, one of his cousins who said she heard him say as much on ``several
 occasions,'' even as recently as January 1999, when her husband, Alfredo Martell,
 left Cuba on a raft.

 Another time, when his Miami aunt was visiting Cuba and at his mother's house in
 Cardenas, Ortiz said he ``asked his aunt Caridad to find him a girl here in Miami
 that he could marry so he could be brought over.''

 A third time he told Ortiz that if he were fired from his job, ``he would come that
 very same day, even if he had to do it in a tub, because he was not going to suffer
 hunger or poverty in Cuba, and that what would hurt him the most would be to
 leave his son behind.''