Noriega’s Legal Team Asks to Quit : Narcotics: The ex-dictator’s lawyers cry foul. They say seizure of his assets has left him unable to afford a defense.

Manuel A. Noriega’s attorneys on Monday asked to withdraw from his drug-trafficking case, saying there is no money to pursue a defense because the U.S. government has frozen all the deposed Panama leader’s assets.

In a motion filed in federal court here, the team of four lawyers said that the Bush Administration is intentionally sabotaging their client’s chance of winning what necessarily will be a costly and lengthy legal battle.

“We have no doubt that the Administration’s refusal to negotiate over legal fees is in part motivated by its belief that without experienced counsel and adequate resources, (Noriega) will decide to fold,” their motion reads.

Three of the attorneys--Frank A. Rubino, Steven Kollin and Jon May--then called a press conference to complain that they had gone months without payment and their debts were into “six-figure numbers.”

“We want to stay on the case and we want to represent the general,” Rubino said, but conducting an adequate defense would require millions of dollars for “hiring three or four more lawyers . . . a half-dozen law clerks . . . two or three more secretaries . . . at least a half-dozen investigators . . . .”

Surely, the lawyers insisted, not every penny Noriega ever made was tainted by drugs, even if the federal government can prove all the allegations in its indictment against him.

“They have taken every single thing in his house, his cars, his bank accounts . . . his children’s bank accounts . . . his wife’s bank accounts . . . essentially everything he owns, with the exception of the clothes on his back,” Rubino said.

For its part, the government had little public response to the attorneys’ motion or to their broadsides. “Mr. Noriega has been accorded all the protections of due process and right to counsel,” Dexter Lehtinen, the U.S. attorney in Miami, said in a statement.

“Nothing the government has done regarding illegally obtained assets has infringed on these rights in any way.”

Diane Cossin, speaking for Lehtinen, added that the accusations in the attorney’s motion would be “answered directly in open court” during a hearing before U.S. Judge William M. Hoeveler that is scheduled for Wednesday.

Federal law permits the freezing of a defendant’s assets before trial if the prosecution can show that the property was profit from criminal acts.

This was done in Noriega’s case. Among other assets, the government confiscated $5.8 million in cash from the dictator’s home in Panama after he was arrested in January. It also froze a reported $20 million from at least five bank accounts in Europe.

Rubino said he “guesses” that about $50 million has been tied up, and insisted that he knows of no other available funds, though U.S. investigators reportedly have estimated Noriega’s holdings at $300 million.

More than two weeks ago, the defense lawyers asked the prosecutors to release enough money to cover their rapidly accumulating expenses. “It would just be ludicrous for them to state that every single thing (Noriega) owns . . . was purchased with drug funds,” Rubino said.

They had been assured, the attorneys said, that their request would be relayed to higher-ups in Washington. Then, last Friday, they were informed that no money would come their way.

This left the defense team little choice but to appeal to the trial judge, according to Sheldon Krantz, chairman of the criminal justice section of the American Bar Assn. “In specific cases, the court can step in and tell the government to unfreeze some assets,” he said.

So the attorneys’ hope now is that Judge Hoeveler will intervene. Beyond that, they clearly intend to try shaming the federal government by alleging that the prosecution is not playing fair even as the whole world is watching.

“I’m sure (prosecutors) are hoping that (Noriega) will be given a court-appointed lawyer, one that has a year or two of experience and has maybe tried two or three cases, maybe with the aid of one part-time investigator,” Rubino said.

“That’s how they want to try the case. Actually, it’s like they want to shoot fish in a barrel.”

Noriega is being held in a federal prison southwest of Miami. His trial, already postponed several times, currently is set to begin next April.