HAVANA (AFP) – The US diplomatic mission in Cuba has convened a meeting here with relatives of political prisoners who are refusing an offer to leave and emigrate to Spain, wives of the jailed dissidents told AFP Monday.

Representatives of the Roman Catholic church and the Spanish embassy were also to attend the 1:00 pm (1700 GMT) Tuesday meeting with officials from US consular services and the US Interest Section's refugee office, they said.

"All we know is that they have invited a representative of each prisoner who has not been contacted by the church or who have refused to travel to Spain," said Laura Pollan, the head of the Ladies in White, a group of wives of political prisoners.

Pollan, whose husband Hector Maseda, 67, is serving a 20-year sentence and has refused emigration to Spain, said at least 20 relatives of the political prisoners would attend the meeting.

Following talks between Cardinal Jaime Ortega and President Raul Castro that were attended by Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Cuban government agreed earlier this month to release 52 dissidents who have been imprisoned since a 2003 crackdown.

So far, 11 political prisoners have emigrated to Spain and another nine were expected to leave for Madrid later Monday as part of Cuba's biggest release of political prisoners in over a decade.

The cardinal is consulting the remaining prisoners on their options, but relatives said more than a dozen could refuse emigration or ask to be sent to the United States instead of Spain.

"My husband is going nowhere, neither to Spain or the United States. His view is this is where you've got to fight," said Magaly Broche, the wife of Librado Linares, 50, released from a 20-year prison sentence.

Church officials stressed that emigrating from Cuba was an offer, not a condition for the release of the prisoners.

Pollan said that besides Spain, countries offering to take the prisoners included Chile, France, Germany, Italy and Poland.

Cardinal Ortega visited the United States in June before the deal on the prisoner release was announced July 7, a State Department spokesman told AFP on Friday.

The Spanish newspaper El Pais, citing senior US administration officials, said Ortega met with assistant secretary of state for Hemispheric Affairs America Arturo Valenzuela during the June 21-27 visit.

Meanwhile, Ariel Sigler, a political prisoner and paraplegic released last month whom the United States granted a humanitarian visa, complained Monday that Cuban authorities were delaying his exit permit, his brother Juan Francisco told AFP.

Told on Monday at a migration office that his exit visa would take at least 30 days, Sigler got angry, shouted anti-government slogans and unfurled a sign warning that he was sick and had to leave the country to receive medical treatment, said the brother.

"Ariel took it really bad. He knows they are delaying his (travel permit) and that he can't wait that long," said Juan Francisco Sigler, adding that his brother was driven home in Pedro Betancourt, in western Matanzas province, in a government bus.