Former Panamanian Dictator Manuel Noriega Sentenced to 7 Years in France

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was sentenced to seven years' jail in France for money laundering, a judge ruled on Wednesday.

Photo: Former Panamanian Dictator Manuel Noriega Sentenced to 7 Years in France

The 76-year-old former general was retried after being extradited from the United States to France in April. He was convicted in absentia in 1999 of laundering money from Colombian drug cartels, KGMI reports.

Noriega, who ruled Panama between 1981 and 1989, was extradited to France after serving 20 years in a federal penitentiary in Florida for drug trafficking. Noriega, either 72 or 76 (his age was in dispute in the court) is weak and partially paralyzed from a stroke.

The former strongman, convicted in France in abstentia in 1999, was retried last week in a three-day proceeding. The former army general and one-time CIA informant was initially arrested for drug trafficking by the U.S. after the American invasion of Panama in 1989, The Epoch Times informs.