Hussein stepson deported to New Zealand

Saffi was arrested last week in Miami.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The stepson of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein began making his way back to his home in New Zealand on Monday, after a decision by U.S. immigration authorities to deport him.

Mohammad Nour al-Din Saffi was seen at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday night, after a flight from Miami, where he had been detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service on an immigration violation.

He boarded Qantas Airways flight 26 to New Zealand, where he holds citizenship. The flight is scheduled to arrive in Auckland at 5:10 a.m. Wednesday (1:10 p.m. EDT Tuesday)

Saffi, 36, was arrested July 3 in Miami, two days after he entered the United States via Los Angeles as a tourist. INS investigators said he did not have the required student visa for a four-day course he planned to take at a Miami flight school.

INS spokesman Russ Bergeron said the FBI in Los Angeles had been alerted by intelligence agents in New Zealand that Saffi was planning to travel to Los Angeles.

Upon his arrival, on July 1, authorities interviewed him at a Doubletree Hotel in Los Angeles, where he said he planned to travel to the Miami flight school to get recertification as a flight engineer, Bergeron said.

Saffi also divulged that he planned to stay at a Comfort Inn in Miami, Bergeron said.

Asked why they then let Saffi travel to Miami when they knew he did not have the required visa, Bergeron said, "We wanted to see where he went and what he did and we wanted to give him an opportunity to register at the school to make our case even more solid against him."

He added, "His movements were monitored."

But law enforcement sources told CNN Correspondent Susan Candiotti that Saffi's movements were not monitored, and that INS caught up with Saffi only after he showed up at the Miami hotel two days later.

By that time, he had visited the school and filled out paperwork to attend it.

The school and an associate of Saffi say they had no idea that a student visa was required.

Saffi's name was checked to ensure he was not on a terrorist watch list, authorities said.

Saffi holds a flight engineering license and is employed as a ground engineer for Air New Zealand.

Under U.S. immigration laws, New Zealand citizens do not need a tourist visa to enter the United States, but, like all foreign nationals, they must have student visas to enroll in school. The student visa cannot be obtained once they are in the United States.

Saffi is the son of Samira Shabandar and her then-husband, Iraqi airline executive Nour al-Din al-Saffi. Hussein had an affair with Shabandar in the 1980s and persuaded her husband to divorce her so they could marry.

Saffi's father was then promoted to the head of the airline, the expert said.

Hussein did not divorce his first wife, but he married Shabandar, who is considered his second wife. Hussein, who has five children with his first wife, has one child with Shabandar.

Saffi left Iraq after the Persian Gulf War, traveling first to Jordan and then on to New Zealand.