By TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE, CAROL MARBIN MILLER AND ANDRES VIGLUCCI

A Cuban father fighting to remove his daughter from her Coral Gables foster family is a fit parent, a judge ruled Thursday -- but that doesn't mean the little girl at the center of the international custody dispute will return to the island with him.

Before a courtroom packed with reporters, attorneys, child-welfare advocates and therapists, Circuit Court Judge Jeri B. Cohen said the state failed to make its case that Rafael Izquierdo had neglected or abandoned his daughter.

But Cohen said she will go forward with a second chapter of what has seemed at times a made-for-television courtroom drama: a hearing to decide whether taking the girl from the home of Joe and Maria Cubas, who have cared for her for 19 months, would harm her.

''We're asking you, imploring you, begging you today to transfer the child back to her father,'' said one of Izquierdo's attorneys, Ira Kurzban.

Answered Cohen: "I am not going to return the child to Mr. Izquierdo today.''

Izquierdo and his legal team were nonetheless jubilant as they left the county courthouse Thursday, embracing on the steps before addressing reporters.

''I am eager to be home,'' Izquierdo said. "What I want is to have my daughter with me.''

Asked if there is a possibility he would stay in Miami, he said: "No chance.''

A disconsolate Maria Cubas, who began to cry silently after Cohen read her ruling, bypassed the media scrum outside the courthouse -- leaving with her husband through a back exit.

''Of course we're disappointed,'' Joe Cubas said later Thursday. "But we're looking forward to the second phase of the trial and pray it will protect the child from harm.''

In deciding whether the girl, now 5, will go back to the rural Cuban town where her father and his family lives, Cohen will weigh claims that she has formed bonds with the Cubas family. The judge also will consider whether separating her from her half-brother -- already adopted by the couple -- will cause irreparable harm.

Attorneys for the Department of Children & Families maintain that taking her from the Cubas household constitutes ``endangerment.''

Cohen, who has been critical of the department's handling of the case, warned that DCF attorneys will have a tough time proving the endangerment claim at the hearing in October.

THE CASE IN BRIEF

The girl and her half-brother, now 13, traveled with their mother, Elena Perez, from Cuba in March 2005. Within a few months, distraught and depressed, Perez attempted suicide.

The children were placed first with relatives of their stepfather, then later at the Cubases' home, where they have lived since April 2006.

The state's attorneys argued that Izquierdo abandoned the girl by allowing her to leave Cuba with her mother and showed little interest in her well-being.

Izquierdo and his attorneys maintain he did not know Perez was mentally unstable and say he was misled by the girl's caregivers in Florida that her mother was on the mend.

In the 47-page ruling, read aloud in a crowded Miami courtroom, Cohen repeatedly criticized Izquierdo, a farmer from the small central Cuban town of Cabaiguán, for being ''passive'' when it came to his child's interests.

She said she was especially disturbed that it took Izquierdo seven months after Perez attempted suicide to apply for a humanitarian visa, which would allow him to come to the United States and claim his child. The judge said Izquierdo could offer no adequate explanation for the time lapse.

''While it is true Izquierdo is not sophisticated and not highly educated, this alone does not explain his inaction,'' Cohen said.

But, she said, "Florida law does not require a father to be a perfect parent, a sophisticated parent nor an assertive parent.''

A LEGAL SPECTACLE

The ruling capped a weeks-long courtroom saga as dramatic at times as a prime-time telenovela.

On one side are the wealthy Coral Gables couple. Joe Cubas is a former sports agent considered something of an exile hero for helping Cuban baseball players prized by Fidel Castro start Major League careers in the United States.

On the other side has been a man portrayed by his attorneys as a humble farmer caught up in a politically charged custody case who simply wants his daughter.

But Izquierdo's attorneys -- the husband-and-wife legal team of Kurzban and Magda Montiel Davis -- are no strangers to contentious Miami politics. Both have been reviled by many anti-Castro exiles: Kurzban previously represented the Cuban government in commercial litigation; Davis was pilloried in Miami after kissing Castro on the cheek and calling him ''maestro'' during a 1994 trip to the island.

The courtroom spectacle also included allegations by the children's mother that Izquierdo and Davis conspired to fabricate key pieces of evidence and urged her to lie on the witness stand, a bombshell that sidelined the proceedings for several days.

Izquierdo and Davis have vehemently denied Perez's claims.

In her ruling, Cohen addressed the allegations, which centered on letters purportedly sent by Izquierdo to the girl's mother while she was in the United States. The issue of Izquierdo's efforts to keep tabs on the little girl after she left Cuba was a crucial piece of the state's case against him.

Cohen said she had a ''strong suspicion'' that the letters were indeed fabricated, noting Izquierdo wrote about photos that were taken well after the correspondence was supposedly sent. She also described his demeanor under questioning as ''jittery'' and "evasive.''

Cohen said those concerns are outweighed by Izquierdo's devotion to the girl, saying that while she ``believes Izquierdo was dishonest with the court on key issues, he appears sincere in wanting to regain custody of his daughter.''

She gave Izquierdo credit for his efforts to claim his daughter, given his 11th-grade education and unfamiliarity with the American legal system.

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

'SLAP ON THE WRIST'

Alan Mishael, attorney for Joe and Maria Cubas, said the references to Izquierdo's alleged perjury in the ruling constituted a "slap on the wrist.''

The judge ''gave the benefit of the doubt to a man she found had fabricated evidence and lied to her,'' he said.

Mishael said he is confident an appeals court would reverse Cohen's decision.

''We're going to prevail on appeal,'' he said.

Any appeal would have to be filed by DCF attorneys. Gov. Charlie Crist was noncommittal about that prospect late Thursday.

''I think we need to review the ruling, get the rationale behind what the judge determined and have a chance to digest that,'' Crist said. ``It's going to take a little time.''

Miami Herald staff writers Evan Benn, Elaine De Valle and Gary Fineout contributed to this report.