Panama`s Noriega Fights US Extradition To France

The appellate court judges could take months before ruling and May told reporters he would appeal the case.

The fate of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was placed in the hands of a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday, as he fought another round to avoid extradition on money laundering charges in France.

Seeking to overturn three previous U.S. court rulings, Noriega's attorney Jon May told a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that his status as a "prisoner of war" gives him special protections under the Geneva Conventions that block his extradition.

"The convention trumps the extradition," May told the judges, arguing that because of his POW status Noriega should have been repatriated to Panama immediately upon completion of his U.S. prison sentence in September 2007.

That argument has been rejected before, most notably by U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler, who presided over Noriega's 1992 trial on drug trafficking, racketeering and conspiracy charges. He was the judge that granted Noriega POW status in the first place.

"There is nothing in the Geneva Conventions that would prohibit this transfer," said prosecutor Sean Cronin, arguing that the conventions do not prevent the United States from honoring its extradition treaties with other countries.

The appellate court judges could take months before ruling and May told reporters he would appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

Ultimately, he said the decision on Noriega could rest with Hillary Clinton. President-elect Barrack Obama's choice for secretary of state would have to sign off on Noriega's extradition if he loses in the courts.

Noriega, who is in his 70s, has remained in a Miami-area prison pending completion of his appeal against transfer to France, where he has been convicted in absentia of laundering millions in cocaine profits through French banks and using drug money to buy three luxury apartments.

The army general and one-time CIA informant, who once ruled Panama like his personal fiefdom, was captured in January 1990 after the U.S. invasion of Panama a month earlier. He was convicted in U.S. District Court in Miami in 1992 on drug trafficking, racketeering and conspiracy charges.