MIAMI (AFP) — Panamanian former strongman Manuel Noriega filed a petition Tuesday to the US Supreme Court to block his extradition to France, where he is wanted for money laundering, his lawyers said.
"Today, we filed the petition at the US Supreme Court and we are confident on the result of this action," attorney Jon May told AFP. The nation's top court does not begin its next term until October.
Federal judges have given the green light for Noriega to be extradited to France and did not grant his request to return to Panama. An appeals court subsequently upheld the extradition order.
Noriega, 73, in September completed a 17-year US prison term on drug charges but has remained in US custody while appealing his extradition to France.
The former army general held sway in Panama from 1984 until he surrendered on January 3, 1990 to US troops who had invaded the country three weeks earlier.
A US Cold War ally and one-time CIA informant whose involvement with drug trafficking eventually became an embarrassment for Washington, Noriega was then flown on a military plane to Miami, where he was tried on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering.
A French court sentenced Noriega to 10 years in prison in 1999 after his conviction in absentia on various charges, but authorities say he would be given a new trial on allegations that he deposited 3.15 million dollars in cocaine trafficking profits in French bank accounts in the 1980s.
Noriega's lawyers have sought to block his extradition and have him returned to Panama, where he faces prosecution over the disappearances and murders of opposition members, arguing that he should be repatriated under the international Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.
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