Ex-Noriega Aide Details Drug Money Deliveries : Narcotics: Del Cid says former dictator’s payoffs came in envelopes and, perhaps, suitcases. Testimony on 4 Parisian prostitutes sparks dispute.

A one-time trusted aide of Manuel A. Noriega testified Monday that the former military leader directed him to deliver bulky envelopes stuffed with drug money to Noriega’s headquarters in Panama City.

The statement by former Lt. Col. Luis A. del Cid came as the U.S. government presented a second week of testimony in federal court in support of 10 charges that Noriega accepted millions of dollars in payoffs to provide a safe haven for Colombian cocaine traffickers.

Del Cid’s testimony represents the most specific allegation so far that Noriega, who was deposed and captured during the U.S. invasion of Panama in December, 1989, had accepted bribes from Colombia’s drug lords.

In his third day on the witness stand, Del Cid prompted demands for a mistrial by Frank Rubino, Noriega’s defense attorney, when he began to tell jurors that four French prostitutes came to see the Panamanian general at his office in 1986.

“I move for a mistrial,” Rubino shouted, leaping to his feet when Del Cid mentioned a visit by four “easy women” from Paris.

U.S. District Judge William H. Hoeveler quickly summoned lawyers to a corner of the ornate courtroom here for an animated five-minute conversation. When Del Cid resumed his testimony, assistant prosecutor Myles Malman shifted to another topic.

Del Cid testified that he twice personally delivered to Noriega cash-filled envelopes he had picked up from Floyd Carlton-Caceres, Noriega’s personal pilot, confidant and intermediary with Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel.

In early 1983, Del Cid said, Noriega “told me to go to the airport to get money from Floyd Carlton at a hangar.”

“What kind of money?” Malman asked.

“Drug money,” Del Cid replied.

Three months earlier, Carlton-Caceres had given him a similar but somewhat lighter envelope on the parking apron outside Noriega’s headquarters, he said, adding that he took the envelope to Noriega in his office.

On both occasions, Del Cid said, Noriega put the envelopes into a safe without saying a word.

Del Cid said that, about a year later, he picked up suitcases at the airport from Marcela Tason, Noriega’s confidential secretary, and, on another occasion, from Cesar Rodriguez, a close business associate of the dictator. He said Noriega put them into one of four office safes that he maintained.

“I imagine it was drug money,” Del Cid testified, acknowledging that he had not looked inside.

Rubino is scheduled to begin his cross-examination of Del Cid, one of the prosecution’s key witnesses, when the trial is resumed this morning.

Del Cid, 47, was indicted with Noriega and 14 others on drug conspiracy charges in February, 1988, by a Miami grand jury. After surrendering during the U.S. invasion, he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge last December and agreed to cooperate with the government in return for a recommendation of leniency.

He told jurors that, a few weeks after the indictment, while still serving in Panama’s military, he was called to the office of Panama’s attorney general to answer questions about the U.S. charges.

But he said an aide quietly instructed him beforehand that Noriega wanted him to deny knowledge of Carlton-Caceres and others named in the indictment. He said he complied with the request.