Cuban opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer, one of the island’s most prominent dissidents, was released from prison Monday and sent into exile in the United States with his family, according to Cuba’s Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Ferrer, 54, arrived in Miami shortly after noon, where Cuban-American leaders and members of South Florida’s exile community welcomed him at Miami International Airport.

His release follows weeks of speculation and comes after decades of opposition to Cuba’s Communist regime, which has repeatedly imprisoned him for his activism.

Ferrer’s health reportedly deteriorated while serving his most recent sentence in Mar Verde Prison in Santiago de Cuba.

In a letter smuggled from prison and shared by his family last month, Ferrer detailed the “beatings, torture, humiliat

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