After a tearful farewell, Imelda Marcos, wife of deposed Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, left Honolulu Saturday in a borrowed aircraft on her way to New York to face arraignment on racketeering charges.
An entourage of 10 people, including two nurses and a Catholic priest, accompanied Mrs. Marcos on board the 18-seater Boeing 737, loaned to the ex-president's wife by tobacco heiress Doris Duke.A federal judge in New York Thursday delayed indefinitely for health reasons the arraignment of Marcos on racketeering charges, including embezzling more than $100 million from the Philippine treasury to buy New York buildings. He ordered Mrs. Marcos to be arraigned Monday on similar charges.
Dressed in a black suit and wearing dark glasses, Mrs. Marcos, hugged and kissed her 71-year-old husband, who was in a wheelchair, at their hillside estate while aides videotaped the scene. The couple wiped away tears before she drove away.
Mrs. Marcos will stay at the Waldorf-Astoria, and aides said friends would pay her New York hotel bill. Since she and her husband were forced to leave Manila in February 1986, she has said only the generosity of friends has enabled her to survive in exile.