Sports agent who helped defectors is freed

MIAMI, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- A U.S. sports agent is returning to his home in Miami after spending 13 1/2 years in a Cuban prison for helping baseball stars defect, his former partner says.

Juan Ignacio Hernandez Nodar was released from prison before completing a 15-year sentence for helping Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez and other baseball stars escape from Cuba, The Miami Herald reported.

News of the sports agent's release and return was announced by Thomas Cronin, a Cape Cod businessman and former partner of Hernandez Nodar.

"We had half the Cuban Olympic team ready to defect at a tournament in Mexico" in 1996, Cronin said as he boarded a plane bound for Miami Thursday to greet Hernandez Nodar upon his return.

At his trial, prosecutors considered Hernandez Nodar to be a Cuban citizen because he was born in Havana. He had moved to Miami with his family when he was 2 years old and later became a U.S. citizen, Cronin said.