Ex-Noriega Lawyer Described as U.S. Informant

A former attorney for Gen. Manuel A. Noriega was a secret federal informant when he telephoned the former Panamanian leader in January, 1990, and advised him to surrender to U.S. forces that had invaded the country, a Noriega lawyer charged Wednesday.

The assertion was made by Frank A. Rubino, Noriega’s current defense attorney, one day before jury selection is to begin in the former dictator’s drug-smuggling trial.

Rubino asked U.S. District Judge William M. Hoeveler to order the former attorney, Raymond Takiff, to appear in court for questioning about his dealings with Noriega after he had agreed to act as an informant for the U.S. attorney’s office in a Miami judicial corruption investigation. In that inquiry, which is unrelated to the Noriega case, several judges have been implicated in a growing bribery scandal.

Takiff telephoned Noriega on Jan. 3, 1990, in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City, days after the general had taken refuge there to escape U.S. troops. “He advised him as to what he should do,” said Rubino. “And what he should do is please the Justice Department by surrendering.”

The next day, Noriega surrendered and he was brought to Miami, where he has been held ever since.

“Had Gen. Noriega not followed Mr. Takiff’s advice, there is a real possibility that this indictment would have been dismissed and Gen. Noriega would not be here today,” said Rubino. He added that Takiff, under investigation for income tax problems, may have been trying to “curry favor with the Justice Department,” rather than help Noriega.

Rubino, then acting as co-counsel with Takiff, said that not only was he unaware of his colleague’s deal with the government, but on the day of Takiff’s phone call to Noriega, Takiff also secretly recorded a conversation between the two lawyers. That tape is in the possession of prosecutors, who have refused to turn it over, Rubino said.

Both prosecutors and Takiff, in an affidavit, have sworn that they never discussed the Noriega case. Assistant U.S. Atty. Sonia O’Donnell further argued that Noriega, who is not a U.S. citizen and was then outside the country, had no constitutional right to privileged conversations with his attorney anyway.

Hoeveler, who asked several questions and seemed troubled by the defense arguments, reserved judgment on the motion.

In other developments Wednesday, the judge denied a defense motion to exclude from evidence two box loads of records pertaining to Noriega-controlled funds in the Panama and London branches of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Prosecutors have said that those records will be used to bolster their contention that Noriega’s “unexplained wealth” was the result of payoffs from Colombian drug lords.

Also released Wednesday was a censored defense motion to dismiss the indictment in which Noriega swears that he was paid more than $10 million by the CIA over a period of 17 years. That same motion charges the government with “gross and flagrant misconduct” by filing false and misleading documents relating to U.S. payments to Noriega as a CIA informant. Hoeveler has yet to rule.