Black Panther back for justice

An American Black Panther who hijacked a plane from the US to Cuba in 1984 returned home on Wednesday - and was arrested, the US Justice Department said.

William Potts, now 56, has a life story that reads like a big-screen script. He spent almost three decades in Cuba while US prosecutors sought to bring him to justice.

Potts reportedly thought that he would be warmly welcomed in Cuba and trained as a revolutionary; instead he was tried for the hijacking, convicted and served 15 years in jail, where he converted to Islam.

The American, also known as William Freeman, had been charged with hijacking in the US.

US prosecutors said in their indictment that on the flight from New York Potts presented himself as a Lieutenant Spartacus.

In a note handed to flight attendants, he called for his "brothers and sisters" in South Africa to be freed.

He criticised US policy on Nicaragua's Sandinistas, and sought a ransom of $5-million, the prosecutors said.

He was arrested on Wednesday at Miami's bustling international airport and was to appear before a federal judge.

He faces up to 20 years in prison in the US, prosecutors said.

So why would Potts choose to return to his home country, even as a disillusioned revolutionary who served years in the tough Cuban prison system?

Potts, who had two daughters by a Cuban wife, said he refused earlier Cuban offers to send him back to the US.

But now he is desperate to see his daughters, who left Cuba for the US, he told CNN.

He told the television network that he had been unable to negotiate a plea deal with the US authorities.

He said he hopes that if he is jailed the sentence will be reduced by the time he was imprisoned in Cuba. He said he understood that there were no guarantees and that the prosecutors would make their own case.

When he sent his daughters to live in the US and "watched their plane take off, he said he was filled with regret for having hijacked a plane", the US cable network reported.