Legal Commentary

Noriega, Now Old and Weak, Testifies in France

By Jeralyn

Manuel Noriega's French money laundering trial opened today. He took the stand, and appeared feeble and weak. He's 76, and recently finished serving 17 years of a 20 year prison sentence in the U.S..

Noriega was charged in France in 1999 with illegally laundering cocaine profits. He was tried in absentia and sentenced to 10 years. This is a re-trial. He was extradited to France in April from the U.S.

Noriega, the Panamanian ruler from 1981 to 1989, has insisted that the money came from his brother's inheritance, his wife's personal fortune and payments by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA considered him a valuable asset for years before he joined forces with drug traffickers and was implicated in the death of a political opponent.

[More...]

According to his lawyer:

"Noriega will explain tomorrow the origin of his funds. He was partly paid by the CIA, on behalf of the American government for the actions he took in the interest of the USA. He received money from his family, inherited from his wife. And there are funds which according to the BCCI bank, were secret accounts for the interest of Panama," Metzner said.

"At no moment, did any of the witnesses heard in the USA, claim that there is a link between the drugs and the money found in France. It should be known that the witnesses were paid by the USA. They were bought, because over there, that's legal. Certain witnesses retracted and their retraction was not taken into account. So these aren't reliable witnesses. These are the people who transported 20,000 tonnes of cocaine for one person and it's that person who we will believe when he is in front of Noriega, who is the one who had him arrested and extradited to the USA. Those who witnessed are part of the people who Noriega had arrested," Noriega's lawyer added.

Noriega suffers from blood pressure problems and is paralyzed on the left side as a result of a stroke four years ago. Enough is enough. Send him home.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 28, 2010 (boomark / email).