The prominent Cuban dissident José Daniel Ferrer has been freed from prison and put on a plane to the US where he will live in exile with his family, the communist country’s foreign ministry has said.
Ferrer, who has been imprisoned repeatedly as the long-term leader of the island’s pro-democracy movement, announced this month he had opted for exile after facing “torture” and “humiliation” behind bars.
In a letter from prison, the 55-year-old said that since he was re-imprisoned in April after being briefly freed under a deal with former US president Joe Biden, “the cruelty of the dictatorship towards me has known no bounds.”
He cited “blows, torture, humiliation, threats and extreme conditions” in prison, including “the theft of food and hygiene products ordered by the regime’s minions”.
Ferrer said he took the decision to leave given threats that his wife would also be imprisoned and his young son sent to an institution for juvenile offenders.
The foreign ministry in Havana said in a statement that Ferrer and members of his family left the country for the US on Monday after “a formal request from that country’s government and the express acceptance” of the dissident.
