After seven months enforced stay in the United States, six-year-old Elian Gonzalez has finally gone back to Cuba with his father, Juan Miguel, and relatives. They flew in a chartered jet from Washington within minutes of a stay of execution being lifted and arrived in Havana at 7.45 p.m. local time.
Elian's mother and 10 other people were drowned last November fleeing Cuba in a small boat but Elian survived after 48 hours in the sea off Florida, floating in a tyre tube.
Elian was free to leave when the Supreme Court yesterday refused to consider an appeal from relatives in Miami that he be granted political asylum from the Cuban communist regime.
The father of Elian, Mr Juan Miguel Gonzalez, made a brief statement at Dulles Airport. He said "I am very grateful for the support I received. I am extremely happy to go back to my homeland."
Then he took Elian's hand and they boarded the aircraft with his stepmother and step-brother who had been living in Washington with the boy while the legal process continued.
President Bill Clinton welcomed the court decision but said that "if Elian and his father decided they want to stay here, it would be fine with me". Mr Clinton, who had all along supported the return of Elian to Cuba, said that "we upheld here what I think is a quite important principle as well as what is clearly the law of the United States".
The President said he hoped that politicians would now cease from using the Elian case for political reasons.
In Miami, relatives who had campaigned for Eilan to stay in the US expressed grief and anger at the court decision. Protests took place outside the Miami courthouse and house in Little Havana where Elian had stayed with relatives until he was seized by federal agents in a night-time raid on April 22nd.