MIAMI– A famous Cuban dissident artist and musician, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, arrived in Miami on Saturday after being released from a five-year prison sentence on the condition that he leave his country.

Alcántara, 38, was greeted at the airport by a crowd that cheered, sang and raised their phones in the air to take his photo. They wrapped him in a Cuban flag, printed with the words “Patria y Vida,” the title of a song for which he shared a Grammy and which became an anthem of the Cuban political opposition against repression.

The United States granted him parole to enter the country earlier this week, according to a social media page maintained by his friends and followers. They wrote that he accepted exile as the only way to escape persecution and continue his art and activism.

Alcántara co-founded a group of Havana artists, writers and musicians called Movimiento San Isidro, named after the neighborhood where Alcántara lived.

He was arrested on July 11, 2021 during a public protest. In 2022, a court sentenced him to five years in prison for public disorder, contempt, and lack of respect for national symbols.

His arrest and imprisonment had long been denounced by human rights organizations and the United States government. Groups such as Amnesty International called him a political prisoner, an accusation that the Cuban government rejected.

Alcantara was being held in a maximum security prison, he said, and was expected to be released last week. But for days, advocates said they still couldn’t contact him and didn’t know where he was.

The Cubalex organization, which provides legal advice to dissidents and denounces human rights violations from outside the country, filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf on Monday.

Until he boarded a plane on Saturday, his defenders were unsure of his whereabouts or whether he was truly free.

He said his first stop on American soil would be at the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity to make an offering.

Other political prisoners remained imprisoned, including fellow artist Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Pérez, his advocates said, and they hoped Alcántara’s release would prompt insistence that Pérez also be released.

Alcántara brought back from Cuba a broken statue of the Virgin Mary, which he described as a symbol of hope and healing, an opportunity to rebuild something from fragments.