Panama’s Noriega Seeks Early Parole

Panamanian Gen. Manuel A. Noriega asked for early parole Tuesday at a hearing in the U.S. prison in Miami where he is serving a drug trafficking sentence, but his lawyer said it was “highly doubtful” his 2007 release date would be moved up.

The U.S. Parole Commission does not release details of parole hearings. But Noriega’s lawyer, Frank Rubino, who attended, said Noriega pointed out in his parole request that he had been “a model prisoner.”

Rubino said he doubted that Noriega would win early parole.

According to Rubino’s account of the proceedings, the commission’s examining officer said that, “due to the severity of the crime that the general was involved in, he would not recommend that he be paroled early.”

The commission typically decides within 21 days whether to grant early release, a commission official in Washington said.

“I think the word is, it’s a rubber stamp,” Rubino said.

Noriega, a former army commander who ran Panama in the 1980s, surrendered to U.S. invasion forces in Panama in 1990. He was brought to Miami to face charges that he allowed Colombian cartels to use Panama as a transit center for U.S.-bound drugs. He was convicted in 1992 of drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering.

Now 64, Noriega was initially sentenced to 40 years in prison. A judge later cut that to 30 years, saying Noriega had served much of his time in near-solitary confinement and had received a harsher sentence than his co-defendants.

The United States recognized Noriega as a prisoner of war, which enables him to wear his military uniform rather than regular prison garb and to receive visitors from the Red Cross.

If his parole request is denied, he would next be eligible to ask for a hearing in March 2004.