Was the U.S. government planning to sweep Manuel Noriega out of the country in the dead of night? The ex-dictator of Panama's defense attorneys on Wednesday morning filed an emergency motion to stay his extradition to France, citing plans to move the prisoner three days ahead of his scheduled release date. The general, who has Prisoner of War Status since the U.S. invasion of his country in late 1989, has been fighting the move, fearful that he will be tried as a common criminal by the French government.
The Emergency Motion for the Stay of Extradition reads in part: "In an effort to prevent General Noriega's lawyers from obtaining the evidence necessary to prove this claim, as well as further litigating his rights under the Geneva Convention, the United States intends to release General Noriega from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons tomorrow at midnight, three days ahead of his scheduled September 9, 2007 parole date. No doubt the United States has determined that the best means of ending this controversy is to whisk the General away under the cover of darkness."
Jon May, Noriega's Fort Lauderdale-based attorney, told TIME that his client informed him yesterday about the expedited plans. "We got a phone call from the General," May says. "He received a piece of paper saying he is going to be moved. We don't know where. We fully expect there will be an airplane waiting to take him to France in the middle of the night or Friday morning. Very sneaky."
May filed the motion for a stay, as well as a petition for habeas corpus, with U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler in Miami and the judge, who presided over Noriega's original trial, granted a stay by the late afternoon but ordered both the government and Noriega's legal team to present their arguments and evidence to him on Thursday morning. Hoeveler will review the arguments in his chambers. The habeas petition by Noriega's lawyers raised concerns that France may fail to accord Noriega prisoner of war status in accordance with the Geneva Convention. The motion also calls for the intervention of the International Committee of the Red Cross "to determine France's true intentions."