Former Panama Dictator Manuel Noriega To Return After 22 Years

Via CNN:

Former dictator Manuel Noriega left France for Panama on Sunday, nearly 22 years after U.S. forces forcibly removed him from office. The 77-year-old is expected to arrive in Panama City on Sunday after a stop in Spain. Panamanian officials want him to face justice in the killing of Hugo Spadafora, his political opponent. Noriega was convicted in absentia in Spadafora’s kidnapping and killing in 1985.

He has been in France since 2010 after two decades in an American prison. For almost two decades, Noriega was a major player in a country of critical regional importance to the United States because of its location on the Panama Canal. The key strategic and economic waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on the narrow isthmus links the Americas.

While in U.S. custody, he suffered from prostate cancer and a stroke. The U.S. government has portrayed Noriega as the ultimate crooked cop — a man who was paid millions by the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia to protect cocaine and money shipments. He was convicted of drug trafficking and other crimes in the United States.

Noriega was indicted in the United States on charges of racketeering, laundering drug money and drug trafficking. He was accused of having links to Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar’s notorious Medellin cartel and, in the process, amassing a multimillion-dollar fortune.

Amid growing unrest in Panama, U.S. President George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama in December 1989, saying his rule posed a threat to U.S. lives and property. Noriega fled his offices and tried to seek sanctuary in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City. He surrendered in January 1990 and was quickly escorted to the United States for civilian trial.