Manual Noriega, who was once the leader of Panama’s military, has been transferred from his prison cell to a local hospital in Panama City. Officials at the prison think that Noriega might have had a stroke. Noriega is currently in prison for murdering political opponents. He is 77 and Panama does allow convicts who are 70 years old to serve out the remainder of their sentences at home; however, the Panama authorities have chosen to keep him in the El Renacer jail. The jail is located just south of Panama City. He was extradited to Panama from France in December of last year.
Noriega served twenty years in prison in the United States after he was convicted of drug trafficking and money laundering. Once his sentence was served, the United States extradited Noriega to France. He was sentence to six years in prison there.
Noriega never served as president of Panama, but he ruled the country as such from 1983 to 1989. He was once an ally of the United States, but in 1990, he was arrested by U.S. troops and charged with turning the country into an international drug trafficking hotspot, as well as racketeering and money laundering. He was convicted of money laundering in France in absentia in 2010. Prosecutors said that he was using drug money to purchase property in Paris. France extradited Noriega to Panama where he is serving a 20 year sentence for murder.
Noriega worked with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from sometime in the last 1950s to the middle of the 1980s; however, a grand jury indicted him on the drug charges in 1988. The United States would eventually invade Panama in 1989. The United Nations would condemn the invasion, saying that it was a violation of international law. The United States would capture, try, and convict Noriega, though, and he would spend the next 20 years in an American jail.
