Noriega Trial to Start; Focus Due on CIA, DEA : Drugs: Prosecutors line up parade of witnesses for unprecedented proceeding. Defense has charged U.S. officials condoned his cocaine trafficking.

After months of delays and legal melodrama, deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel A. Noriega is set to go on trial today in an unprecedented proceeding expected to explore the methods and morality of U.S. intelligence operations abroad.

The drug-trafficking trial, which begins in federal court this morning with the tedious process of selecting jurors, represents the first time a foreign leader has been seized by invading U.S. forces and tried as a criminal in civilian court.

Noriega is facing 10 separate charges of conspiracy, racketeering and international drug-trafficking based on allegations that he turned his country into a safe haven for murderous Colombian cocaine dealers to smuggle their drugs into the United States.

The former dictator, who fled invading American military forces in December, 1989, but eventually was captured at the Vatican Embassy in Panama City, also is charged with allowing traffickers to process their drugs in Panama and launder their cash proceeds through his country’s banks.

Many legal experts, however, believe that the pockmarked general never would have been returned to America for trial if doing so had not satisfied U.S. foreign policy objectives.

“Noriega comes to us as a political case,” said University of Miami law professor D. Marvin Jones, an expert on constitutional law. “The reason he’s here on trial is not because he’s a drug dealer, but because we had certain interests in Panama which we could not achieve. What we really wanted was to depose a political figure who had become a thorn in the side of American foreign policy.”

Seizing a foreign leader by invading his country and putting him on trial in an American court for civilian crimes is “unprecedented . . . and should not be going on,” Jones said.

Prosecutors will attempt to show that the former military strongman received substantial cash profits from the Colombians. The government’s 1988 indictment of Noriega estimated his take at $4.6 million, but a parade of prosecution witnesses--many recruited only in the last year--will offer cumulative testimony that the payoffs far exceeded that amount.

In his defense, Noriega will try to convince the jury that as a long-time source of information and assistance to the CIA and the Drug Enforcement Administration, he had been secretly authorized by U.S. officials to get involved with Latin American drug smugglers. But he faces a potential hitch: Court rules will not permit him to disclose secrets that U.S. District Judge William M. Hoeveler deems to be irrelevant to the criminal charges against him.

The drug case to be tried in federal court here was developed from painstaking investigative work by field agents of the DEA and mid-level lawyers at the Justice Department. Indeed, his indictment was opposed by some DEA intelligence officials.

Judge Hoeveler, over Noriega’s objections, upheld the legality of trying a captured foreign leader last year, and the Supreme Court upheld a corollary notion a few weeks later--that U.S. authorities have search and seizure powers beyond American borders.

In ordering the invasion of Panama, President Bush did not stress the fact that Noriega was a fugitive from the American justice system who had thumbed his nose at a U.S. grand jury. Rather, the President said that Noriega was endangering the lives of American citizens in Panama by making military threats against U.S. interests, including the Panama Canal, and refusing to step down in favor of the duly elected government of Guillermo Endara.

The closest to a Noriega-type case in recent history was the U.S. indictment three years ago of former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos and his wife on fraud and racketeering charges. They were accused of having stolen billions of dollars of Philippine wealth, which they allegedly stashed in the United States.

Although Marcos died in late 1989, his wife Imelda was put on trial last year in New York federal court. She was acquitted on all charges. Some jurors said they were convinced that political factors had influenced the prosecution and that the case was tried “on the wrong side of the ocean.”

The government’s case against Noriega appears to be exceptionally strong. At least eight of the prosecution’s witnesses are former co-defendants who were indicted with him by a Miami federal grand jury three years ago. Defense attorneys for the ex-dictator will try to convince jurors that U.S. prosecutors “bought” their testimony by allowing them to plead guilty to reduced charges and promising to recommend leniency when they are sentenced.

Thus, the case against Noriega is what former federal prosecutor Richard D. Gregorie calls “a classic conspiracy case”--one based largely on the testimony of accomplices who will testify about criminal acts performed by them and their superior, Noriega.

A star witness for the government will be former Lt. Col. Luis A. del Cid of the Panama Defense Forces. The one-time Noriega confidant is expected to testify that he received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Colombia’s Medellin cartel and personally delivered it to the general.

Other principal witnesses will include Noriega business associates and former Panamanian diplomats, as well as Floyd Carlton-Caceres, a Panamanian pilot who flew cocaine into the United States and drug profits back to Noriega’s headquarters.

One diplomat is Ricardo Bilonick, Noriega’s former ambassador-at-large to Washington. Bilonick, who accepted a plea agreement only last week, is scheduled to testify that he accepted $10 million in payoffs from Medellin cartel leaders to protect at least 15 tons of their cocaine bound for the United States and then delivered the money to his leader.

In a late development, another co-defendant, Daniel Miranda, entered a guilty plea on Wednesday and will testify for the government about flying drug profits from Florida to Panama City.

Once a jury is selected, a process that could take several days, attorneys expect testimony by prosecution and defense witnesses to take up to four months. If convicted on all counts, Noriega faces maximum penalties of 140 years in prison and fines exceeding $1 million.

While the outlines of the government’s case generally are known, defense strategy remains something of a mystery. Frank A. Rubino, Noriega’s blustery chief defense lawyer, has charged repeatedly that any drug-trafficking involvement by his client was condoned and approved by U.S. intelligence officials who mainly were interested in information Noriega was feeding them about the Colombians’ drug activities.

Rubino has told reporters that he cannot disclose specific data at this point because Judge Hoeveler, who will preside at the trial, has granted his request to examine certain sensitive federal documents that only can be revealed later.

Prosecutors Michael P. Sullivan and Myles Malman have acknowledged that Noriega received $322,000 over a period of years for information he furnished the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. But they have said at court hearings that no evidence exists that the government ever authorized criminal activities on Noriega’s part.

Other sources have noted that while Sullivan and Malman may be correct in their statements, some of the documents likely to be disclosed at trial could prove embarrassing to the CIA and to the DEA.

A series of circumstances have delayed Noriega’s trial since he was first brought to Miami and incarcerated 20 months ago.

Jackson reported from Washington and Clary from Miami.

The Case Against Noriega

Former Panamanian leader Manuel A. Noriega, 53, a longtime spy for the U.S. government, is to go on trial today on charges of turning his homeland into a virtual branch office for Colombia’s Medellin cocaine cartel. Here is a chronology of developments in the case against him:

1988: The Indictment

Feb. 4: Noriega is indicted in Miami on racketeering and drug charges.

March 16: Domestic opposition in Panama grows as military officers attempt a coup, but Noriega crushes the opposition.

March 18: Reagan Administration officials meet secretly with Noriega to negotiate his departure from Panama in return for dropping the indictment against him. Talks continue into the summer, but prosecutors protest, the judge questions legality of the offer and Noriega eventually spurns the deal.

1989: U.S. Invades Panama

Oct. 3: Another coup attempt. Noriega is briefly held prisoner, but loyal troops take control and execute coup leaders. Survivors blame U.S. indecision for the coup’s failure.

Dec. 20: The United States invades Panama.

1990: Noriega Surrenders

Jan. 3: After holding out at the Vatican Embassy in Panama City, Noriega surrenders to U.S. troops and is flown to Miami for arraignment the following day. A trial date is set for March 4 but subsequently is delayed four times.

Jan. 26: Prosecutors say Noriega should be denied bond because he is a danger to the community and apparently placed voodoo curses on the trial judge and U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh. The judge denies bond.

Feb. 2: The U.S. government agrees that Noriega is a prisoner of war, allowing him to wear his uniform, receive a stipend from the United States and come under the protection of the International Red Cross.

April 30: Lead defense attorney Frank A. Rubino threatens to withdraw from the case, pleading poverty and complaining the United States has had $20 million of Noriega’s foreign bank accounts frozen. After nine months of wrangling, the Austrian government unfreezes a $1.6-million account, and the U.S. government agrees to foot the rest of Noriega’s legal bill.

Dec. 5: Former Noriega aide Luis A. del Cid pleads guilty and agrees to testify against his boss. In the next eight months, all untried co-defendants agree to cooperate in exchange for reduced prison terms.

1991: The Trial Begins

Jan. 18: United States acknowledges that the CIA and U.S. Army paid Noriega about $320,000 over his career but denies he received $11 million as the defense claims.

Jan. 25: Noriega gets access to assets frozen by federal government, enabling him to pay his lawyers.

Aug. 7: Court rules that some secret U.S. documents may be used at the trial; also releases documents in which Noriega claims he allowed illicit drugs and weapons to be shipped through Panama at behest of CIA and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Source: Reuters, Associated Press