French prosecutors are seeking the maximum 10-year jail sentence for the 76-year-old general

Panama’s Noriega to hear verdict at French trial

PARIS — Panama’s ex-dictator Manuel Noriega risks being sent to jail for 10 years after spending two decades in a US prison, when a French court on Wednesday hands down a verdict in his money-laundering trial.

During three days of hearings last week, Noriega denied taking payments from Colombian drug lords in the 1980s and said he was framed by his one-time sponsor and ally, the United States.

French prosecutors are seeking the maximum 10-year jail sentence for the 76-year-old general, who was extradited by the United States to France in April to face trial on money-laundering charges.

That is the same sentence handed down to Noriega when he was tried in absentia in 1999 on charges of laundering the equivalent of 2.3 million euros (2.8 million dollars) from the Medellin drug cartel through French banks...more

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