PANAMA: THE ROAD TO RECOVERY : Panamanian Back in Miami to Face Charges
A Panamanian officer indicted along with deposed dictator Manuel A. Noriega on drug-related charges was escorted to Miami on Monday by U.S. drug enforcement agents, the Justice Department announced.
Lt. Col. Luis del Cid, a Noriega loyalist who commanded a Panama Defense Forces unit in the province of Chiriqui, gave himself up to U.S. forces in Panama, spokeswoman Deborah Burstion-Wade said.
Del Cid was one of 15 Noriega associates indicted in February, 1988, by a federal grand jury in Miami. He is wanted on four counts related to cocaine possession and laundering of drug profits, the spokeswoman said.
After turning himself in, Del Cid was arrested by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Panama, she said.
DEA agents escorted him to Miami. “Normally, he would have been flown in by U.S. marshals, but this was not an ordinary case,” she said.
A federal official in Miami, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Del Cid probably will be arraigned before a magistrate in Miami today but would not comment further.
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