Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Witness Tells of Noriega-Contra Ties

Ex-Panamanian dictator Manuel A. Noriega assisted the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels in the early 1980s by providing false passports to Panamanian pilots who were ferrying arms to them, a government witness testified at the former strongman’s racketeering and drug-smuggling trial in Miami. Floyd Carlton-Caceres, Noriega’s former personal pilot, had testified earlier that he delivered cash payoffs to his commander in 1982 and 1983 from Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel in exchange for use of Panama as a transshipment zone for cocaine flights into Florida. In cross-examining Carlton, defense attorney Frank A. Rubino tried to link gunrunning to the Contras with drug flights to the United States. But U.S. District Judge William M. Hoeveler, responding to repeated objections by prosecutor Michael P. Sullivan, limited Rubino’s questioning on this issue.