Noriega Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison in France
By DAVID JOLLY
Published: July 7, 2010


PARIS — The former Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega was convicted Wednesday of money laundering and sentenced by a French judge to seven years in prison.
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Times Topic: Manuel Noriega
Mr. Noriega, 76, was found guilty by the 11th chamber of the Tribunal Correctionnel de Paris, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said. The tribunal also ordered Mr. Noriega to forfeit about $2.9 million that had been blocked in his French bank accounts.

The prosecutor in the case, Michel Maes, had sought a 10-year prison term.

In 1999, Mr. Noriega was convicted in absentia of laundering $3 million in illicit funds for the Medellin drug cartel through international banks and into French accounts. The result Wednesday came as he was retried on the same charge after his April extradition from Miami, where he had been held pending extradition after serving 15 years of a 30-year sentence.

Mr. Noriega was returned to the Santé prison in Paris.

Olivier Metzner, a lawyer for Mr. Noriega, declined to comment on Wednesday. His lawyers have argued that because of ill health, Mr. Noriega would likely end his life behind bars if he were given a long sentence. The defense has 10 days to appeal.

Like the United States, which had at one point put Mr. Noriega on the C.I.A. payroll, France once had a close relationship with the strongman: He was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1987 by François Mitterrand, the former president.

But Mr. Noriega fell out of favor with Washington in the 1980s and was indicted on federal drug charges. On Dec. 20, 1989, the United States military invaded Panama to capture Mr. Noriega for trial in the United States. After seeking refuge in the Vatican Embassy, Mr. Noriega surrendered on Jan. 2, 1990.

He was convicted by a Miami jury in April 1992 on charges of cocaine trafficking, racketeering and money laundering, the first time an American jury had convicted a foreign head of state of criminal charges.