[JURIST] Former Panamanian military leader Manuel Noriega arrived in France Tuesday to face money laundering charges after being extradited from the US. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a surrender warrant Monday after a federal judge lifted the stay blocking his extradition last month. Noriega will appear Tuesday before French prosecutors to hear the charges against him, which stem from allegedly laundering $3 million in drug profits by purchasing property in Paris. Noriega’s lawyers have said they will seek his immediate release, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as a former head of state.
Noriega has been fighting extradition since 2007. Last month, the US Supreme Court declined to reconsider Noriega’s petition to stop the extradition process. His lawyers filed the petition in February after the Supreme Court denied certiorari on the case in January. Noriega, who has been declared a prisoner of war, sought to enforce a provision of the Geneva Convention that requires repatriation at the end of confinement. Noriega and his wife were sentenced in absentia to 10 years in jail by a French court in 1999, but France agreed to hold a new trial if he was extradited.