Maradona returns to Cuba for treatment

Fallen football legend Diego Maradona has returned to Cuba to resume treatment for cocaine addiction after a relapse confined him to a psychiatric hospital in his native Argentina and sparked unsuccessful attempts by his family to keep him at home.

Maradona, 43, was greeted by dozens of journalists after arriving in Havana. He refused to speak to the media greeting them only with a hasty “good night” before he smiled and left.

His return to Cuba capped a weeks-long drama in Argentina that played out in nationally broadcast TV interviews and court battles with his relatives over how and where to continue his treatment.

He even appealed last month to Argentine President Nestor Kirchner to help him leave the country.

Maradona has been repeatedly in hospital over the last four years, most recently in April when doctors said he was suffering from a weakened heart and severe breathing problems.

Since then, he has received treatment in a Buenos Aires psychiatric hospital, where he had been held under strict orders by his doctors and family before being released earlier this month.

An admitted cocaine addict and 1986 World Cup hero, Maradona had been barred from leaving Argentina after family members initially blocked his early efforts to return to Cuba. He has said he prefers treatment in Cuba because of greater privacy.

In Cuba, Maradona is to stay in the National Centre for Mental Health, a sprawling complex of individual houses with red-tile roofs in a quiet, palm-tree lined area of western Havana where his movements will be restricted.

The centre is in the same neighbourhood where President Fidel Castro, who has characterised himself as a friend and admirer of Maradona, is said to live.