Ex-Panama dictator Manuel Noriega was sentenced by a Paris court on Wednesday to 7 years for laundering $3 million in drug money through French banks.
Noriega denied laundering charges, saying the money had come from other sources, including family inheritance and payments collected from the CIA, reported France-24 news.
Noriega, who ruled Panama between 1981 and 1989, was extradited to France after serving 20 years in a federal penitentiary in Florida for drug trafficking. Noriega, either 72 or 76 (his age was in dispute in the court) is weak and partially paralyzed from a stroke.
The former strongman, convicted in France in abstentia in 1999, was retried last week in a three-day proceeding. The former army general and one-time CIA informant was initially arrested for drug trafficking by the U.S. after the American invasion of Panama in 1989.
Noriega denied laundering charges, saying the money had come from other sources, including family inheritance and payments collected from the CIA, reported France-24 news.
Noriega, who ruled Panama between 1981 and 1989, was extradited to France after serving 20 years in a federal penitentiary in Florida for drug trafficking. Noriega, either 72 or 76 (his age was in dispute in the court) is weak and partially paralyzed from a stroke.
The former strongman, convicted in France in abstentia in 1999, was retried last week in a three-day proceeding. The former army general and one-time CIA informant was initially arrested for drug trafficking by the U.S. after the American invasion of Panama in 1989.
