Defense Says Noriega Fought Drug Flow

Defense attorneys in the drug smuggling trial of former Panama dictator Manuel A. Noriega opened their case Monday by declaring that the defendant had given unprecedented help to the United States in its efforts to stop the flow of drugs through Panama.

“Gen. Noriega was a friend of the United States,” defense attorney Jon A. May told federal court jurors.

Monday’s opening statement marked the resumption of Noriega’s trial after a seven-week recess that began when U.S. District Judge William M. Hoeveler underwent emergency heart surgery.

For four months before that, federal prosecutors had attempted to prove through painstaking testimony that the general--ousted in a U.S. invasion in December, 1989, and brought here for trial--took millions of dollars in bribes from Colombian drug lords, permitting them to ship U.S.-bound cocaine through Panama.

May said the defense will attempt to show that for years Noriega helped the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration intercept cocaine and marijuana shipments from Colombia, helped U.S. authorities trace drug money launderers in Panama and tracked down and apprehended fugitives from drug crimes in the United States.

He was only indicted, the defense contends, after he clashed with the Ronald Reagan Administration and allegedly refused a U.S. request to commit Panamanian troops to the fight against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

Hoeveler has strictly forbidden defense attorneys to make that claim to the jury, however, since no defense witness will substantiate it.

As its first witnesses the defense called two former DEA directors, John Lawn and Peter Bensinger, to elicit testimony that Noriega had seemed to cooperate with their Panama-based agents in the 1970s and 1980s.

Lawn acknowledged having sent at least three letters of commendation to Noriega in 1985 and 1986, at a time when Noriega headed a military intelligence unit in Panama. Lawn said in a note in July 1985: “I wish you continued success in fighting the drug menace.”

Appearing chagrined by the letters, Lawn and Bensinger, who was his predecessor at the DEA, sought to minimize such commendations, saying they had hoped that by being diplomatic they could assure cooperation from Panamanian authorities and protection for DEA agents in that country.

“I would not characterize Gen. Noriega, either then or now, as a truly outstanding drug law enforcement officer, although there were cases of (his) individual cooperation,” Bensinger testified. “I always regarded Gen. Noriega with suspicion. I based that on the files I had seen, anecdotal information, even the size of his house.”