Noriega’s Confinement Illegal, His Lawyers Say

Manuel A. Noriega has been held illegally in a tiny cell at an Alabama prison since being evacuated from Florida after Hurricane Andrew, his attorneys charged Thursday.

The deposed Panamanian leader has been allowed out of his 12-foot-by-6-foot cell at Talladega Federal Correctional Institute only one hour a day, attorney Jon May said.

“In what can only be described as a flagrant and gross violation of the Geneva Convention, the United States has placed Gen. Noriega in the ‘hole’ at Talladega,” May said in a motion filed in federal court.

Noriega’s attorneys maintain that he is a prisoner of war under the terms of the Geneva Convention and should be kept in a military prison and given the same treatment as anyone captured in battle.

U.S. District Judge William M. Hoeveler gave prosecutors 20 days to reply to the charges and set a hearing for Oct. 23.

Noriega, who surrendered after the December, 1989, U.S. invasion of Panama, has been sentenced to 40 years in prison on eight drug and racketeering counts.

He was to be assigned to a permanent prison after the issue of his prisoner-of-war status was resolved. Until then he was being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center outside Miami when it was damaged by Hurricane Andrew on Aug. 24.

Prosecutors have not disputed the contention that Noriega is a prisoner of war, but they have argued that, having been convicted, he should be treated as any other criminal.