Manuel Antonio Noriega, the brash former dictator of Panama and sometime ally of the United States whose ties to drug trafficking led to his ouster in 1989 in the largest US military action since the Vietnam War, has died. He was 83.
President Juan Carlos Varela of Panama announced Noriega’s death on Twitter early Tuesday morning.
Mr Varela’s post read, “The death of Manuel A. Noriega closes a chapter in our history; his daughters and his relatives deserve to bury him in peace.”
Thought he was dead long ago.
After he was stripped of his rank by Panama’s new civilian government in 1990 and taken to Florida to face charges, Noriega’s booking photo, disseminated around the world, became emblematic of his fall. It showed him glum in a brown T-shirt holding a placard with the words “US Marshal, Miami, FL,” reduced to federal prisoner 41586.
Noriega was convicted in April 1992 and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He insisted all along that the trial and charges were a farce.
“I accuse George Herbert Walker Bush of exercising his power and authority to influence and subvert the American judicial system in order to convict me,” he said in a two-hour courtroom speech.
