THE CASE AGAINST THE GENERAL

An exhaustive recapitulation of how the US nailed Manuel Noriega, Panama's erstwhile strongman, on drug-trafficking and racketeering charges. Drawing on apparently open access to prosecutors and defense counsel, Albert (an editor of The Recorder, a San Francisco law journal) offers a detailed, if premeditatedly objective, account of a case with geopolitical implications. While he provides much background information—including a rundown on the reasons why the Justice Department sought to indict a military dictator who had ties to an alphabet soup of Washington-based agencies (CIA, DEA, NSC, etc.)—the author focuses on the events surrounding a precedent-setting trial that could take place only after American forces invaded Panama, captured its de facto head of state, and spirited him away to a maximum-security cell beneath Miami's federal courthouse. Albert does a fine job of recounting how government attorneys were able not only to piece together the structure of Colombia's Medell°n cartel but also to link Noriega to its criminal activities in the US and elsewhere. In the process, he makes clear that Faustian bargains with narcoterrorists, murderers, money-launderers, corrupt officials, and other felons are a must in obtaining evidence enough to move against the likes of a Noriega. Covered as well are the tactics employed by both sides in presenting their cases to the jury and the difficult decisions faced by the presiding judge, who sentenced the 58-year-old defendant to lengthy prison terms following his multiple-count conviction. By contrast, Albert merely touches on such issues as America's right to seize a putative fugitive in a foreign nation; the legality of the Panama incursion; the propriety of intercepting Noriega's phone calls while he was in detention; and whether, in the end, any real justice was done. An absorbing matter-of-fact narrative that, for lack of interpretative perspectives, begs consequential ethical and moral questions. (Eight-page photo insert—not seen)