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Supreme Court declines to reconsider Noriega extradition appeal

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST]] The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to reconsider a petition filed by former Panamanian military leader General Manuel Noriega to stop his extradition to France on money laundering charges. Noriega's lawyers filed the petition last month after the Supreme Court denied certiorari on the case in January. Noriega, who has been declared a prisoner of war, sought to enforce a provision of the Geneva Convention that requires repatriation at the end of confinement. Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissented from the original denial of certiorari, arguing that the court should use the opportunity to resolve confusion over its decision in Boumediene v. Bush granting federal courts the power to review habeas petitions brought by "enemy combatants." Last April, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Noriega's claim was precluded by § 5 of the Military Commission Act of 2006, which the government argued "codifie the principle that the Geneva Conventionsre not judicially enforceable by private parties." Noriega was challenging a district court's August 2007 ruling that allows him to be extradited to France. He is wanted in France on charges of money laundering through French banks. Noriega and his wife were sentenced in absentia to 10 years in jail in 1999, but France has agreed to hold a new trial if he is extradited.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 22, 2010 (boomark / email).