Spaniard Jailed 21 Years by Castro Returns Home

A Spaniard who played a leading role in the Cuban revolution but later tried to overthrow Fidel Castro returned home Sunday to an emotional welcome after his release by Castro after 21 years in jail.

Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, Cuba’s longest-held political prisoner, who was serving a 30-year sentence for organizing an armed resistance group, was allowed to leave Saturday night aboard a scheduled flight of Cuba’s Cubana airline.

His 24-year-old daughter, Elena Patricia, tearfully embraced her father during a private family reunion in a lounge at Madrid’s Barajas Airport.

The 52-year-old dissident, fighting back tears, briefly emerged to a tumultuous welcome from about 100 Cuban exiles, including two former guerrilla leaders, who cheered loudly and shouted, “Cuba will overcome!” and “Death to Fidel’s communism!”

“In the dungeons and in the prisons, I could feel your solidarity despite my isolation,” Gutierrez Menoyo told well-wishers.

“I want to express my thanks for all your support, from the king (Juan Carlos I) and Felipe Gonzalez to the last Spaniard,” he said.

During an official visit to Cuba in November, Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez secured a pledge from Castro to release Gutierrez Menoyo.

Family members said that Gutierrez Menoyo, who had refused government offers to ease his plight in exchange for recanting his political views, has been in poor health in recent years.

The son of Spanish immigrants to Cuba, he commanded a guerrilla group that allied itself with Castro’s forces in the last days of the uprising that ended the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

But he became disenchanted with Castro in 1961 and went into exile in Florida, where he organized a resistance group, Alpha 66, that carried out attacks inside Cuba. Arrested in 1965 after a shoot-out with Castro’s troops, he was condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to 30 years in jail.