Panama's former dictator Manuel Noriega, who was on the CIA payroll, ousted from power by US troops in 1989, and spent years in prison for drug trafficking and money laundering, has died aged 83, authorities said. Noriega died in Panama City's Santo Tomas Hospital where he had been recovering from surgery in March to remove a brain tumor, and a subsequent operation to clean up cerebral bleeding.
President Juan Carlos Varela wrote on Twitter that Noriega's death "closed a chapter in our history." He said the ex-strongman's family "deserved to bury him in peace." Noriega's lawyer Ezra Angel asked for "respect for his family's privacy at this painful time." He told AFP that Noriega died around 0400 GMT on Tuesday - late Monday in Panama, but gave no details of the cause of death. He said the burial would be a private family affair and gave no further details.
Noriega had been serving lengthy prison sentences in Panama for murder and forced disappearances during his 1983-1989 dictatorship. Following years of ill-health that included respiratory problems, prostate cancer and depression, Noriega's family pleaded with the authorities to let him serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest. But the government rejected their appeals.
Born in 1934 to a poor family, Noriega entered Panama's military at a young age and rose through the ranks to become de facto ruler of a country that hosts the strategic Panama Canal. "I knew Noriega when I was a lieutenant and he was a second lieutenant," said a former National Guard general Ruben Dario Paredes, a Noriega critic. He was "very attentive and normal, correct, disciplined, and decent - but when that man reached the rank of general he was definitely someone else. Power disfigured him, corrupted him," Paredes told AFP.