Apr.28, 2010

MANUEL NORIEGA appeared in a Paris court yesterday after Panama’s former dictator was extradited overnight from the US to face money laundering charges.

Noriega (76), a one-time CIA informant who was overthrown in a US invasion in 1989, was flown to Paris after being taken from a cell in Miami, where he had completed a 17-year sentence for drug smuggling.

The former military dictator was convicted in absentia in France of laundering cocaine profits through French banks and using the money to buy three luxury apartments here. He has fought extradition for years, but US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Monday signed a “surrender warrant” after the US Supreme Court had cleared the way for the move in January by declining to hear his appeal.

After arriving on board an Air France flight accompanied by French prison officers early yesterday morning, Noriega was arrested and brought to court to hear the charges against him.

In 1999, a French court found Noriega and his wife guilty of laundering several million euro from the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia via up to 20 bank accounts and using the money to buy three luxury apartments in Paris. The defence claimed the money came from the former military leader’s personal fortune and included funds he received from the CIA.

France has agreed to hold a new trial, but one of his lawyers, Yves Leberquier, said yesterday he would seek his client’s immediate release on the grounds that foreign heads of state enjoy immunity from prosecution and that the French courts have no jurisdiction to pursue a case that dates from the 1980s.

His legal team will also argue that France lacks prison facilities to detain a prisoner of war – a status granted to him by the US courts and in recognition of which his Miami cell – nicknamed the presidential suite – contained two rooms, a television, a telephone and an exercise bike.

“Like you, I had photos in mind from 20 years ago, but he is old and sick. He had a stroke about four years ago and it has left him a little handicapped on the right hand side,” Mr Leberquier said after yesterday’s closed hearing.

Noriega was also convicted in Panama of ordering the murder of political opponents, as well as embezzlement and corruption. But despite those more serious charges, Noriega has fought to return to Panama, where older convicts are permitted to serve prison terms at home.

“We will do everything to show that his place is not in France and that this man must return to his country, which is what Panama requests,” Oliver Metzner, another of his lawyers, said.

In Panama, foreign minister Jean Carlos Varela said the government respected the United States’ “sovereign decision” to extradite the country’s former dictator.

Manuel Noriega: From CIA protege to dictator

A CAREER soldier from a tough, run-down district outside Panama city, Manuel Noriega rose through the ranks of Panama’s military and became a CIA protege.

As leader of the National Guard’s intelligence unit under military leader Omar Torrijos, he orchestrated the “disappearance” of the regime’s opponents. After Torrijos was killed in an air crash in 1981, Noriega began manoeuvring for power and became the effective ruler of Panama two years later, promoting himself to general.

A paid CIA collaborator since the early 1970s, Noriega initially worked closely with Washington, allowing US forces to set up electronic listening posts in Panama and use the country as a conduit for covert aid to pro-American forces in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Relations soured, however, and he fell out with Washington after dismissing Nicolas Ardito Barletta, Panamas first directly elected president in 16 years, and becoming involved in drug trafficking. He lent support to Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Libya’s Col Muammar Gadafy and took multimillion-dollar kickbacks from the Medellin drug cartel.

In 1989, Noriega nullified the results of a general election while the Noriega-controlled National Assembly declared the US and Panama to be in a “state of war”.

In December that year, president George H W Bush sent 27,000 US troops to seize control of Panama city. Noriega took refuge at the Holy See’s embassy but US forces blasted heavy metal music at the building to wear him down.

Convicted in Miami of turning Panama into a shipment point for Colombian traffickers smuggling cocaine to the United States, Noriega was sentenced to 30 years in 1992. With time off for good behaviour, he was to be released in 2007 but remained in prison as he fought extradition to Paris. If the French courts find him guilty of money laundering, Noriega could face a further 10 years in prison.