Manuel Noriega, the former military dictator in Panama, is preparing to return to his homeland to face the music for his murderous eight-year reign after being granted early release from an American prison.

The US Parole Commission has ruled that he will be set free from the Federal Correctional Institution, Miami, on September 9, having served close to two thirds of a 30-year sentence for drug trafficking and racketeering.

His freedom is unlikely to last beyond his first steps outside the jail, however. Noriega, 70, who was forced from power after the US invasion of Panama in 1989, is wanted there and in France for crimes perpetrated during his de facto rule. He has already been convicted and sentenced in both countries — in France for money laundering, and in Panama for two murders, including that of Hugo Spadafora, a political foe whose severed head was found dumped in a US Postal Service mailbag in 1984.

Frank Rubino, his lawyer, said that his client expected to have the case reopened upon his return and would “ade-quately defend himself”. But Panama has already filed a request for his extradition, indicating that it is not in the mood for mercy, and the French authorities are expected to follow suit.

“As much as Noriega may be celebrating his early release, the truth is it’s a celebration for naught,” Guy Lewis, one of the prosecutors at Noriega’s 1990 trial, told The Miami Herald yesterday. “The real question is: will he be turned over to the Panamanians or the French to continue his prison sentence?”

Noriega was widely believed to have been a participant in the 1968 army coup that overthrew Panama’s leader, Arnulfo Arias, and was then appointed head of military intelligence, the second most powerful position in the country.

Noriega, nicknamed Pineapple Face because of his pockmarked complexion, conducted a ruthless campaign against peasant guerrillas and masterminded the “disappearances” of numerous political opponents of the new Government before promoting himself to general and imposing himself as de facto leader in 1984.

He turned the 12,000-strong Panama Defence Force into a Mafia-style operation, demanded a cut of every crime-related dollar deposited in Panamanian banks and founded the Western hemisphere’s first “narco-kleptocracy” — a regime powered and propped up by drug profits. Colombia’s notorious Medellín drug cartel paid him multimillion-dollar bribes for his assistance in shipping tons of cocaine to the US.

Yet the US looked the other way, retaining him on the CIA payroll to the tune of $100,000 (£50,000) a year in return for favours that spanned two decades and four presidencies.

He allowed Washington to channel funds, and reportedly weapons, through him to pro-American forces in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and assisted the US in finding safe refuge for the exiled Shah of Iran.

But the US-Panama love affair ended after Noriega attempted to rig elections in 1989 and unleashed hit squads to suppress demonstrations.

After American soldiers poured into the country, he sought sanctuary in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City. He eventually surrendered and, in Miami in 1992, was found guilty of drug trafficking.

Rise and fall of a dictator

1968 First Lieutenant Noriega takes part in military coup, helping to install Omar Torrijos as President

1969 Appointed chief of intelligence, beginning a wave of terror and oppression that left him the most feared man in Panama 1970s Recruited by CIA. He becomes a double agent, playing off the West against communist governments

1984 Amid allegations of election fraud, Nicolás Ardito Barletta, Noriega’s favoured candidate, becomes President. Noriega, now head of Panama’s Armed Forces, removes Ardito Barletta when he begins investigating possible brutality in the intelligence services

1988 Washington indicts Noriega on drugs charges, but he remains in power

1989 US troops invade Panama, capture Noriega and bring him to trial

Source: CNN

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