Noriega’s Prosecutors Forced to Testify : Courts: Government attorneys deny listening to tapes of defendant’s jailhouse phone calls. The defense had moved to dismiss the drug case.

Lawyers for the U.S. government denied Friday that they had listened to any recordings of talks between Gen. Manuel A. Noriega and his lawyers that would taint the drug-running case against the deposed Panamanian ruler.

In a bizarre twist to a case already distinguished by several unprecedented legal issues, prosecutors were compelled to testify in connection with a defense motion to dismiss the case against Noriega.

Thus, the first person to take the witness stand in the Noriega case was Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Patrick Sullivan, the man who later this year will lead the government’s prosecution.

Sullivan testified 15 feet from Noriega, who sat hunched over at the defense table listening on headphones to a simultaneous translation.

The defense has asked the court to dismiss the charges on the grounds that the government improperly recorded and listened to the former Central American general’s telephone conversations with members of his defense team.

Prosecutors contend that prison administrators and Drug Enforcement Administration agents were the only federal officials to listen to the jailhouse tapes. The prosecutors were then presented with a written report of the findings.

Prosecutors have said previously that jailhouse recordings are routinely used to monitor prisoners who are suspected of continuing criminal activity and that Noriega and his attorneys were aware of the practice.

Prosecutors and DEA agents asked former Noriega aide Jose I. Blandon to listen to the tapes, hoping he would be able to crack a code they believed Noriega was using to move millions of dollars stashed in foreign bank accounts.

Sullivan said little valuable information was gained from Blandon’s review. “We don’t know what he’s talking about,” Sullivan said. “He talks to his girlfriend in Panama, his girlfriend’s mother . . . . He talks politics.”

Sullivan said that, while reviewing Blandon’s report on the phone calls, he immediately stopped reading when he realized a conversation between Noriega and his lawyers was about to be discussed.

“That surprised me,” because such recordings are not allowed, Sullivan said.

Sullivan said he believed that, because Noriega knew some calls would be monitored, “he wouldn’t talk about anything sensitive.”

Defense attorneys scoffed at the notion that Noriega waived any right to have his talks with lawyers kept private and pointed out that prison rules prohibit taping attorney-client phone calls.

Blandon is the focus of an FBI investigation into the leak last November of several Noriega tapes to Cable News Network. A broadcast of one conversation between Noriega and his lawyers led to a free press-fair trial fight that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

District Judge William M. Hoeveler continued the hearing until next Friday, when Blandon is expected to testify.

In other issues discussed Friday, Hoeveler gave chief defense counsel Frank A. Rubino two weeks to decide if he is staying on the case while government lawyers continue trying to free up money, now frozen in Noriega’s foreign bank accounts, that could be used to pay his attorneys.

The judge also set a new trial date of June 24.