Noriega Lawyers Play Up His Aid to U.S. Drug Fighters : Law: Ex-dictator’s defense has not launched direct attack on smuggling and racketeering charges.

Attorneys for Manuel A. Noriega have focused their case so far on the deposed Panamanian leader’s alleged cooperation with U.S. drug fighters, a defense that attempts to answer only indirectly drug-smuggling and racketeering charges presented by the government.

In a strategy designed as an oblique attack on allegations that Noriega accepted millions of dollars in payoffs for helping Colombian drug smugglers, the defense apparently hopes that jurors in his trial will see his cooperation with U.S. officials as being inconsistent with evidence introduced earlier by prosecuting attorneys.

Defense attorneys Frank A. Rubino and Jon May, after the first week of presenting their case, will not say why they have not mounted a direct challenge to extensive prosecution testimony that Noriega received at least $10 million in payments from the Medellin drug cartel to protect its U.S.-bound cocaine shipments moving through Panama.

One defense source said privately: “Remember that all we have to do is raise a reasonable doubt about the government’s proof in the minds of jurors. The government has the burden of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

And May told reporters: “Wait to see what our case looks like when we have finished late this month.” He hinted that some Panamanian witnesses will be called to dispute prosecution claims that Noriega was “a crooked cop,” as Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael P. Sullivan has labeled him.

Sam Burstyn, a defense attorney in Miami who previously represented a co-defendant in the case, said Noriega’s lawyers have made “a big mistake” in not openly challenging the payoff allegations.

“You absolutely have to deal with this,” Burstyn said. “You cannot avoid what is obviously in the minds of the jury. Before the trial took a recess, jurors spent three months hearing that Noriega was on the take.”

In pretrial court filings last summer, Rubino said he would rely on a “public authority” defense, meaning that Noriega had been authorized to deal with leaders of the drug cartel. He suggested that several former directors of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration would testify that they authorized Noriega, either directly or indirectly, to associate with narcotics traffickers because he was providing DEA officials with information on their activities.

Rubino also said that Noriega’s defense would be based partly on reports that the Ronald Reagan Administration had relied on the former Panamanian leader to assist Nicaragua’s Contra rebels in their fight against the Sandinista government. In addition, he said there was evidence that the Contras were involved in drug-smuggling.

But U.S. District Judge William M. Hoeveler repeatedly cautioned Rubino during early stages of the trial that details related to the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal would be regarded as irrelevant.

Rubino will not say if the judge’s comments contributed to a shift in defense strategy.

So far, the defense has called two former DEA directors who have testified that Noriega was helpful, to a degree, in returning U.S. drug fugitives to the United States, in allowing the Coast Guard to board Panamanian vessels suspected of carrying marijuana and occasionally in providing secret Panamanian bank records on suspected drug traffickers.

John C. Lawn and Peter Bensinger, however, both qualified their comments about Noriega. Lawn said that for years Noriega resisted a U.S. proposal that Panama amend its strict bank secrecy laws to give the DEA wider access to records.

Bensinger testified that as early as the 1970s, when Noriega was a high-ranking military officer, “I always regarded him with suspicion.” He said his doubts were based on “the files I had seen, anecdotal information, even the size of his house.”

Another defense witness, former DEA agent James Bramble, who was once the government’s top agent in Panama, testified that a tip from Noriega in 1983 led to the arrest of Ramon Milian Rodriguez, an alleged drug-money launderer, in Florida.

Customs Service officials and DEA agents seized $5.5 million that was in his possession, along with 61 pounds of cocaine, Bramble said.

Noriega, who was apprehended following a U.S. military invasion of Panama in December, 1989, faces up to 140 years in federal prison if convicted on all 10 racketeering, conspiracy and drug-smuggling counts against him. His trial is scheduled to continue Monday.