# What's Manuel Noriega up to these days?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-manuel-noriega-up-to-these-days/153571>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 7, 2003, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-manuel-noriega-up-to-these-days/153571 "2003-02-07T21:38:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![davidw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@davidw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidw)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-manuel-noriega-up-to-these-days/153571/1 "2003-02-07T21:38:41Z")

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With the US on the road to removing another dictator/former client from power, I started reminiscing about ol Noriega. I’m assuming he’s still in jail (does anyone know what his sentence was, btw?), but has anyone interviewed or talked to him lately? What’s he been doing with himself?

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**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-manuel-noriega-up-to-these-days/153571/2 "2003-02-07T22:30:14Z")

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His scentence from the feds in Miami in '92 was 40 years for money laundering and drug trafficking. In 1999 judge reduced the  
sentence and he could be eligible for release by 2007.

Thats not the end for Manuel tho: a French court convicted him in absentia in 1999 of money laundering and sentenced both him and his wife Felicidad to 10 years in prison.

Also, Panama has a formal request to the United States to extradite Noriega _there_ so he can be tried for the deaths of soldiers who attempted to overthrow him in a 1989 coup.