MIAMI, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Relatives of Elian Gonzalez sued six members of the Immigration and Naturalization Service Tuesday for storming into their house and seizing the boy.
WTVJ reported the suit was filed by Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's great uncle; Lazaro's wife, Angela Gonzalez; and their daughter, Marisleysis Gonzalez.
"We are doing this so everyone knows what happened that night," said Lazaro Gonzalez through an interpreter at a news conference. "There was no reason for them to enter our home so violently and take Elian in a violent way."
The federal court suit asked for an unspecified amount of money for the incident on April 22, 2000. The names of the INS agents were sealed to protect them.
Elian had washed ashore on an inner tube Thanksgiving Day 1999 after his mother drowned while trying to make it from Cuba to Florida. He was just 6 at the time.
Elian was returned to his biological father in Cuba after the raid.
