Former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega dies, aged 83

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega has died at the age of 83, a source close to his family said.

There was no immediate information on the cause of his death, which happened late on Monday.

Panamanian president Juan Carlos Varela wrote on Twitter that “the death of Manuel A Noriega closes a chapter in our history”.

The onetime US ally was ousted as Panama’s dictator by an American invasion in 1989. He took refuge in the Vatican embassy and refused to leave.

Noriega later served a 17-year jail sentence in the United States for drug offences.

He spent the first two decades after his ousting in American and French jails and the final years of his life in a Panamanian prison for murder of political opponents during his 1983-89 regime.

Noriega accused Washington of a “conspiracy” to keep him behind bars and tied his legal troubles to his refusal to co-operate with a US plan aimed at toppling Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government in the 1980s.

Following Noriega’s ousting, Panama underwent huge changes, taking over the Panama Canal from US control in 1999, vastly expanding the waterway’s economy and enjoying a boom in tourism and real estate.

Today the Central American nation has little in common with the bombed-out neighbourhoods where Noriega hid during the 1989 invasion, before being famously smoked out of his refuge at the Vatican Embassy by incessant, loud rock music blared by US troops.

For three days, the US resorted to psychological warfare by playing loud music through a perimeter of speakers surrounding the embassy.

Known mockingly as “Pineapple Face” for his pockmarked complexion, Manuel Antonio Noriega was born poor in Panama City on 11 February, 1934 and was raised by foster parents.

He joined Panama’s Defence Forces in 1962 and steadily rose through the ranks, mainly through loyalty to his mentor, General Omar Torrijos, who became Panama’s de facto leader after a 1968 coup.

In recent years, Noriega had suffered various ailments, including high blood pressure and bronchitis.

In 2016, doctors detected the rapid growth of a benign brain tumour which had first been spotted four years earlier.

In January this year, a court granted him house arrest to prepare for surgery on the tumour.

Noriega is survived by his wife, Felicidad, and daughters Lorena, Thays and Sandra. 0 In 2016, Manuel Noriega’s doctors detected the rapid growth of a benign brain tumour which had been spotted four years earlier