HAVANA, Sept 9 1998 - Boxing hero Muhammad Ali, in Cuba on a humanitarian mission, wants to meet another 20th Century legend : Fidel Castro.

The three-times former heavyweight champion said Wednesday he would like to see Castro, a heavyweight of world communism, during his three-day trip to the Caribbean island.

"Yes, sure, if he's in the country," Ali, 56, told reporters when asked if he was seeking a meeting with Castro, who normally invites well-known visitors for a tete-a-tete in his Revolution Palace.

Ali has already fulfilled one wish, of meeting up again with his friend and Cuban boxing hero Teofilo Stevenson, who greeted him at Havana's international airport late Tuesday.

"I am very happy to see him again," Ali said in comments barely audible because of the effects of his Parkinson's Disease. Stevenson said he too was delighted to see his "brother" again.

Ali was on his second visit in two years to Cuba, where he will deliver Friday to a Havana hospital a donation of more than $1.2 million of medical aid from a U.S. humanitarian organisation, the Disarm Education Fund.

He was also scheduled to visit various other medical facilities in Havana, and hold a series of meetings with Cuba's cultural, political and sports leaders.

The U.S. boxing hero, who began his career as Cassius Clay but later changed his name, also visited Cuba in 1996 to hand over another donation of medical aid worth $500,000.