The Cuban foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque, has said that he briefed Pope John Paul on the case of a six-year-old Cuban boy in the United States, who is at the centre of a custody dispute.

Mr Perez Roque, speaking after his talks in the Vatican, said he gave the Pope a detailed account of the dangers to the boy's health of being kept from his father in Cuba.

But he said he did not ask the Pope to intervene in the case, which has become a political battle between Havana and Cuban exiles in the US.

An earlier Vatican statement about the meeting made no mention of the boy, Elian Gonzalez, but said Pope John Paul had urged greater religious freedom in Cuba. Mr Perez Roque is touring Europe seeking support for Havana's demand that Elian , who was shipwrecked off the Florida coast, be returned to Cuba.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service