Salas recalled that Noriega must face six sentences: three for homicide, one for deprivation of freedom, one for corruption and another one for embezzlement...
The Second Superior Court has still to set the date of the trial for the disappearance and death of Heliodoro Portugal (1970), and Noriega will also appear in the Chiriqui Superior Court to respond for the disappearances of Everett Clayton Kimble and Luis Quiroz Morales in 1968 and 1969, respectively.On the one hand, these additional trials don't really matter much for Noriega. He's already set to serve at least twenty years in El Renacer for the 1989 murders of Hugo Spadafora and Moises Giroldi.
On the other hand, I came across an article that is particularly worrisome.
It is widely known that he has long wanted to return to his home country. Many say that is because Noriega will essentially find freedom in Panama. “Here they will just let him go,” Francisco, the brother of the disappeared activist, worried.
His concern is not unfounded, despite the fact that Panamanian judges have already condemned Noriega in absentia to more than 60 years in prison for crimes against political opponents. Article 107 of Panama’s penal code says convicts who are over 70 can exchange jail cells for house arrest.
According to Sanjuro, Article 107 always “had Noriega’s name on it.” He says the law was crafted by the government of ex-president Martin Torrijos in large part to exonerate Noriega upon his eventual return.
Sanjuro shares the concerns that Noriega will spend his last days in the comfort of his own home, but is adamant about getting the former strongman into a Panamanian court. If Noriega lives to complete his current jail sentence in France in 2014 he will then be a free man, Sanjuro reminded.The uncertainty surrounding his future in Panama is no reason to hold up his extradition, but if Noriega is somehow freed or gets to spend the rest of his life under house arrest, it will be a travesty.
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