Jeweler Linked to Noriega Gets 10 Years in Drug-Smuggling Plot

A Panamanian jeweler charged with Manuel A. Noriega in a marijuana-trafficking scheme was sentenced Thursday to up to 10 years in prison.

Enrique A. (Kiki) Pretelt admitted last month that he had conspired with Noriega to take bribes from Tampa-based drug smugglers to help ferry $300-million worth of Colombian marijuana through Panama and hide the profits.

U.S. District Judge William Castagna set a special status on Pretelt’s term that would enable him to be freed on parole at any time. The judge told him to come back after he testifies in Noriega’s drug-racketeering case in a separate indictment in Miami.

A federal prosecutor from Miami told Castagna that Pretelt has been cooperating in the Noriega case and is expected to be an important witness in the trial.

Noriega, in prison outside of Miami, is accused in a February, 1988, indictment of taking $4.6 million in bribes from Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel to turn Panama into a way station for U.S.-bound drugs. The trial of the former Panamanian leader has been delayed until at least January.

Pretelt’s attorney, George Tragos, said Pretelt is likely to be the government’s “big gun.”

“He’s probably the best witness the government has,” Tragos said.

He said that Pretelt was a legitimate, well-respected businessman who, with the exception of this case, was “clean as a whistle.”

Pretelt, 47, promised to cooperate fully and agreed to forfeit $108,000--the amount he received for his part in the transactions, Tragos said.

Pretelt pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money in one drug deal and to aiding a second marijuana-smuggling attempt by making arrangements to relabel a shipment from Colombia as being of Panamanian origin.

He could have been sentenced to a 20-year prison term.