PANAMA’S FORMER dictator, Manuel Noriega, was sentenced to seven years in jail yesterday for laundering millions of euro through French bank accounts and properties in the 1980s.
The 76-year-old former general was extradited in April to be retried in a French court on completion of a 17-year prison term in Miami for drug smuggling.
In 1999, a French court found Noriega guilty in absentia of laundering several million euro from the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia using up to 20 bank accounts and spending the money on luxury apartments here.
A Paris court yesterday ordered the seizure of €2.3 million in frozen French bank accounts held in Noriega’s name and ordered that €1 million be paid in damages to Panama.
Defence lawyer Yves Leberquier said his client was “downhearted and surprised by this decision, which he can hardly comprehend”.
Another member of Noriega’s legal team, Olivier Metzner, criticised “this decision with political connotations, which no doubt suits American authorities”.
During three days of hearings last week, Noriega denied taking payments from Colombian drug gangs in the 1980s and said he was framed by his one-time sponsor, the United States. He testified that Washington had turned against him in the 1980s when he refused to allow Panama to become a staging ground for operations against leftists across Central America.
Defence lawyers had argued that Noriega’s extradition to France was unlawful and that as a prisoner of war – a status granted to him by the US – he was not subject to the jurisdiction of the French courts.
A career soldier from a tough district outside Panama city, Noriega rose through the ranks of Panama’s military and maintained a firm grip on political power until 1989. A paid CIA collaborator since the early 1970s, he 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 over time, however, and he was ousted in 1989 when then president George Bush snr sent 27,000 US troops to take control of Panama city.
An extradition request has also been issued by the Panamanian authorities. Noriega’s lawyers said no decision had been taken on whether to appeal the verdict.