Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega can be extradited to France after completing his US prison sentence on a 1992 drug trafficking conviction, a US federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The decision by Magistrate Judge William Turnoff was essentially a formality because a higher-ranking federal judge last week rejected claims by Noriega’s lawyers that he should be returned to Panama because he was held in the United States as a prisoner of war.

The former dictator, captured by US troops in January 1990 after falling foul of his former American allies, is due to be released from a Florida jail on September 9 after serving 17 years for drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering.

Today's decision means the 73-year-old will then be taken straight to France to serve a ten-year sentence for allegedly laundering more than $3 million of drugs money through French banks.

He was convicted of the crimes while jailed in the US, but the French government has agreed to a new trial if he is extradited, according to court documents.

Noriega had also been convicted in absentia in Panama for offences committed during his rule from 1983 to 1989, including for his role in the disappearance and murder of opposition members, and sentenced to a total of 60 years in prison. But he would almost certainly have been held under house arrest because of his age, risking becoming a political irritant for the Government.

Judge Turnoff’s ruling is technically a recommendation to the US State Department for Noriega’s extradition to France, which has assured the US through diplomatic channels that Noriega will continue to be held there as a POW once extradited.

Noriega’s lawyers said they would probably appeal against today's order, which is based in part on a decision last Friday by Senior US District Judge William Hoeveler rejecting the POW claims.

Mr Hoeveler originally declared Noriega a POW but said in last week’s ruling that designation does not make Noriega immune from extradition to foreign countries for other crimes.

“I can assure this court and everyone else: you haven’t heard the end of this,” said Frank Rubino, Noriega's attorney.

Noriega contends that under the Geneva Conventions, a POW must be returned home after hostilities have ceased - in his case, more than 20 years ago.

But US prosecutors say POWs who have pending criminal charges must face them, or be sent to a third country such as France that has a legitimate extradition treaty with the US. Both judges sided with that argument, Mr Turnoff ruling today: “The rights asserted by General Noriega simply do not exist under the Geneva Conventions.”

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