Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno, February 11, 1934 – May 29, 2017)was a Panamanian politician and military officer. He was military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989, when he was removed from power by the United States during the invasion of Panama.
From the 1950s until shortly before the U.S. invasion, Noriega worked closely with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Noriega was one of the CIA’s most valued intelligence sources, as well as one of the primary conduits for illicit weapons, military equipment and cash destined for U.S.-backed counter-insurgency forces throughout Central and South America. Noriega was also a major cocaine trafficker, something which his U.S. intelligence handlers were aware of for years, but allowed because of his usefulness for their covert military operations in Latin America.
In 1988, Noriega was indicted by the United States on drug trafficking charges in Miami, Florida. During the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, he was removed from power, captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to the United States. Noriega was tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering in April 1992. On September 16, 1992, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison, which was later reduced to 30 years.
Noriega’s U.S. prison sentence ended in September 2007; pending the outcome of extradition requests by both Panama and France, for convictions in absentia for murder in 1995 and money laundering in 1999.
France was granted its extradition request in April 2010. He arrived in Paris on April 27, 2010, and after the re-trial that is a rule in France after any in absentia sentence, he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in jail in July 2010. A conditional release was granted on September 23, 2011, for Noriega to be extradited to serve 20 years in Panama. He returned to Panama on December 11, 2011. Noriega died at Hospital Santo Tomas in Panama City on May 29, 2017, two months after brain surgery.
Image and intro from wikipedia.com