New Noriega Link to DEA Could Hurt Prosecution, Sources Say

Manuel A. Noriega cooperated for five years with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in an intelligence operation whose existence and last-minute disclosure could undermine the government’s case in the drug conspiracy trial against the deposed Panamanian general, government sources say.

As of Friday, the prosecution had not provided Noriega’s defense team, as required by law, with information on this additional intelligence role for Noriega, whose cooperation with the U.S. government had been acknowledged.

Sources close to the Noriega trial, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the prosecution fears that the new material--and the failure to disclose it--could threaten the entire case.

The defense argues that Noriega is not only innocent of drug-dealing, but always cooperated with the DEA in its investigations. It has contended that the charges against Noriega were motivated by a falling-out he had with the Ronald Reagan Administration when he refused to support the military operations of the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan Contras.

Although the prosecution acknowledges Noriega’s work with U.S. intelligence and drug agents, it contends, as one source put it, “that this doesn’t mean he couldn’t be doing his own drug-dealing on the side.”

The government is required by law to provide the defense with information in its possession that tends to prove the defendant’s innocence. The defense says that requirement applies to all government files, not just what the prosecutors have been given.

The new material is contained in a file that three DEA agents, all formerly based in Panama, identified to Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael P. Sullivan and other prosecutors last weekend in a meeting in Miami. The prosecutors reportedly were outraged when the agents started talking about the secret operation when they were being interviewed about testimony they were prepared to give under subpoena by the defense.

Sources close to the case said the drug enforcement effort--called Operation Negocio, or business in Spanish--broadened the scope of Noriega’s cooperation with the United States, both as a paid CIA informant and in helping to halt major drug operations in the middle to late 1980s.

During the Miami meeting, the DEA operatives told the prosecutors that Operation Negocio was an effort to identify pilots and planes flying drug money into Panama between 1983 and 1987. They said they would provide information about it in court, if asked. That testimony could come this week.

The file on the operation was found after the Miami meeting.

Neither prosecutors nor defense attorney Frank A. Rubino could be reached Saturday for comment.

“The prosecutors have to disclose it once they know about it,” one source said. Sullivan “is obligated to produce it, . . . otherwise it is withholding critical information from the defense. That could end the case.”