TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/112690/1126105.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.0 KB | 133 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 37

In Miami, Noriega Cries "Foul!"


The imprisoned dictator asks a judge to dismiss his case because
the government eavesdropped on his phone calls


    Dressed in a khaki four-star general's uniform, Manuel
Noriega walked to the front of a Miami courtroom last week in
his first public appearance in months. The former Panamanian
dictator read an open letter accusing the U.S. government of
trying to deny him a fair trial. "It is painfully obvious that
the government does not wish me to be able to defend myself,"
he told Federal Judge William Hoeveler. "They have taken my
money, deprived me of my lawyers, videotaped me with my lawyers,
wiretapped my telephone calls with my lawyers and even given
them to the press. It is to the benefit of the government that
I cannot defend myself, for they fear what I know."

    Noriega's extraordinary performance was carefully scripted
melodrama, but he was not the only one wondering if he would
ever face a verdict in a U.S. court. The government last week
found itself floundering even further in its bid to convict
Noriega of allowing Panama to be used for drug shipments by the
Colombian cocaine cartel. During his hearing, Noriega's three
attorneys sought to have Hoeveler dismiss the case on the basis
of government misconduct, including the alleged illegal taping
of Noriega's telephone conversations with his lawyers from his
cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center near Miami. Said
attorney Frank Rubino: "The quality and degree of the
government's crimes is unlike anything seen since Watergate."


    Rubino's charge was hyperbolic, but the ruckus over
Noriega's tape-recorded telephone conversations had taken a
bizarre new turn as the FBI got into the act. Declaring they
were looking for "stolen government property," two bureau
agents visited the hotel next to CNN's Atlanta headquarters,
where Cable News Network investigative reporter Marlene
Fernandez was staying. The agents said they were summoned by
hotel security, but they did not have a warrant, and they
carried off a videotape and sundry papers, despite the
challenges of a CNN lawyer on the scene. Network president Tom
Johnson said he protested the action "in the strongest terms"
to FBI officials in Washington. The next day an FBI agent
appeared at the Washington bureau of CNN, asking to see
Fernandez and her producer. Neither was in the bureau at the
time.

    The FBI was looking for scratchy recordings of Noriega's
conversations in Spanish that CNN had revealed were in its
possession. When Hoeveler issued an injunction forbidding
broadcast of the recordings, CNN, which had previously
disseminated parts of several tapes, still went ahead to air
one purporting to contain Noriega's talks with attorneys. After
the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld Hoeveler's
prohibition, the network appealed to Supreme Court Justice
Anthony Kennedy. He referred the matter to the full nine-member
bench, which at week's end was considering an emergency CNN
petition to rescind the ban.

    Noriega's lawyers verified that the tapes, apparently seven
in all, were recordings of their client's telephone chats,
including at least one with his legal defenders, discussing
potential prosecution witnesses. All such calls are normally
monitored by prison authorities, unless officials know the
talks specifically involve a prisoner's attorneys. The question
was whether the tapings violated the no-eavesdropping rule.
Noriega's lawyers argued that the Sixth Amendment protection of
Noriega's privileged communication with counsel had in fact been
violated. Meanwhile, CNN claimed that its First Amendment
freedoms from prior restraint had been abridged.

    U.S. law-enforcement officials were clearly disturbed about
CNN's possession of the tapes and about how the network got
them in the first place. The Panamanian government has claimed
to have Noriega recordings that it received from the U.S. State
Department; speculation was that the tapes came into reporter
Fernandez's hands from Panamanian sources.

    Whatever the provenance of the recordings, their squelching
by Judge Hoeveler opened a second front in the court battle.
A number of publishers, including the Time Inc. Magazine Co.,
TIME's parent organization, and the New York Times Co., filed
an amicus brief in support of CNN's petition to be freed from
the restraining order. A similar brief was filed by several
major television networks. Says Jane Kirtley, director of the
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: "News
organizations are in the business of exposing governmental
misconduct, and that's what CNN has done."

    The court is expected to hand down a ruling on the
injunction this week. It has never upheld the issuance of a
prior restraint on the publication or broadcast of news,
considering it, in a 1976 decision, to be the "most serious and
least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights."

    In the midst of the tapes confusion, Noriega's lawyers added
yet another twist to the case. Their client, they said, was
broke. The Panamanian government claims that Noriega looted the
country of up to $300 million, but all the booty that has so
far come to light, an estimated $20 million in 27 bank accounts
around the world, has been frozen. The attorneys, who charge
up to $350 an hour, have not been paid in 11 months, and say
they can no longer afford to represent the former Panamanian
leader. They asked Judge Hoeveler to set aside a ceiling of $75
an hour for government-paid public defenders so that they could
continue representing Noriega for their normal fee, but the
judge seemed unmoved. He said "some top-flight criminal-defense
lawyers" were willing to handle the case at the government's
comparatively low hourly scale.


By Andrea Sachs. Reported by Cathy Booth/Miami and Jerome
Cramer/ Washington.