NATION IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Cartel Said to Have Financed Election

A witness in the Miami drug trial of ex-Panama dictator Manuel A. Noriega testified that Colombian drug lords funneled millions of dollars into the 1984 election of Panama’s President Nicholas Ardito Barletta. Barletta was later overthrown by the military after trying to investigate charges that Noriega had a political rival murdered. Col. Lorenzo Purcell, former head of the Panamianian Air Force, testified that in a staff meeting, he, Noriega and others were told that members of the Medellin cartel were angered about a 1984 raid on a cartel drug lab. The Colombians said they had paid millions of dollars to a Noriega aide to protect that lab, with the understanding Noriega was to receive part of it. “It was also said that . . . part of the money was used to support the election,” Purcell said.