Panamanian police are still hunting her husband, Dr Roberto Arias, a former Panamanian ambassador in London, suspected of planning a coup against the government of President Ernesto de la Guarda.

She was mobbed by journalists at the airport. After trying to get through to her mother by phone, she agreed to talk to the press.

The ballerina said she did not know where her husband was or even if he was safe.

"Naturally I am concerned. Any woman who doesn't know where her husband is, is naturally concerned," she said.

She refused to answer questions about the situation in Panama but said she intended to return, saying "Of course, it's my husband's country."

After intervention from the British Ambassador Sir Ian Henderson, Dame Margot was freed from prison at dawn and taken to Panama City's airport for a flight to the United States.

'Decoy duck'

In a statement to the House of Commons in London, shadow foreign secretary Aneurin Bevan welcomed her release. "The British public did not appreciate having seen her in the role of the swan, then seeing her in the role of a decoy duck," he said.

The Panamanian National Guard detained the ballerina yesterday when she arrived at Balboa harbour at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal on a fishing boat called Nola.

She had set out with Dr Arias on a fishing trip in the Gulf of Panama but when she returned the following day her husband was missing.

It is believed he left the Nola and jumped onto the Elaine, a shrimp boat, in the Pearl Islands with the intention of landing on the coast and storming the National Guard barracks in the town of Chorrera.

Local fishermen told the authorities Dr Arias ordered them to raise from the sea a buoy loaded with machine-guns, grenades and ammunition.

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