Chavez says deposed Honduran president Zelaya returns home

Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed as Honduras president in a June 28 military coup, has returned to Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez told a public even on Monday.

"Viva Zelaya! And viva Honduras!" Chavez told an audience in Venezuela's capital Caracas, after announcing that Zelaya was now in the United Nations building in Tegucigalpa.

Zelaya left the nation on June 28 when heavily armed soldiers invaded the presidential palace and seized him from his bed and then forced him to board a flight to Costa Rica.

But leaders of the post-coup de facto Honduran government tried to play down the news, saying that it was a strategy.