CNN Accused of Contempt for Airing Noriega Tapes

Cable News Network was charged Wednesday with criminal contempt for broadcasting tape recordings of ousted Panamanian leader Manuel A. Noriega’s prison conversations.

CNN was charged with “knowingly and willfully” disobeying an order from Noriega’s trial judge by broadcasting translated excerpts of conversations between Noriega and his attorneys’ staff.

The case is a constitutional showdown over freedom of the press and fair-trial rights.

Network attorneys pleaded not guilty, and U.S. District Judge William M. Hoeveler scheduled a non-jury trial to begin July 11.

“CNN welcomes the opportunity for Judge Hoeveler to hear all the evidence in this matter and believes it will not be found to have violated any of the court’s orders,” CNN spokesman Steve Haworth said in Atlanta.

If convicted, the company would face a fine, with the judge deciding the amount. No individuals are named in the case.

The charge was filed by Robert Dunlap, a former federal prosecutor appointed by Hoeveler to review the tapes issue.

Nina Vinik, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida, called the criminal charge inappropriate but said CNN was wrong in broadcasting the tapes.

“It’s our position that criminal sanctions against the press are not an appropriate means to dealing with this kind of problem,” she said. “But absolutely, the stuff was privileged and should never have been disclosed, and the person or persons responsible for that disclosure should certainly be pursued.”

CNN never revealed the source who leaked the tapes, routinely recorded by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, as Noriega was preparing his trial defense.

The network stopped airing the tapes when the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld Hoeveler’s order banning broadcast. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the dispute.

One broadcast covered Noriega speculating about whether two Panamanians captured after the U.S. invasion that ousted him from power in December, 1989, would testify against him.

Noriega is serving 40 years in the same prison southwest of Miami where the tapes were made.