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Carnival 2006
Torrijos opens a new legislative session
Noriega defaults in torture case
The other Moscoso administration museum theft
Oscar Arias wins in Costa Rica
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General Noriega defaults in US federal torture suit

by Eric Jackson

Panama's former dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega appears to have lost a massive lawsuit brought by a former political prisoner under the Torture Victims Protection Act, a US federal law. The general, now a resident of the federal prison in Miami but assigned a September 2007 release date, stands to have a $21.5 million judgment entered against him in a Wyoming federal district court.

The lawsuit was brought by Thomas J. Bleming, an American volunteer in an ill-fated late 1970s guerrilla movement that aimed to topple the Panamanian dictatorship then headed by General Omar Torrijos Herrera. At the time Noriega was the head of the Panama Defense Forces' G-2 military intelligence, or as Torrijos sometimes described him, "my gangster." Bleming alleges that for more than 21 months, from his capture in 1979 until shortly before the death of General Torrijos in 1981, Noriega oversaw systematic torture that included mock executions, the threat of being thrown from an aircraft in flight, many beatings, having his hair pulled out by its roots, starvation, deprivation of water and extended periods of solitary confinement.

Bleming brought the suit on his own behalf without a lawyer and the case was once dismissed without prejudice for being improperly pleaded, but Judge Alan B. Johnson allowed the plaintiff to file and amended complaint, which was done. Noriega then failed to answer within the allotted time. On February 24 Bleming filed a motion for a default judgment, which is now pending before the court. There might still be a bench trial on the issue of the amount of damages, and theoretically the judge could set aside the default if Noriega makes a motion for him to do so. However, it appears that Bleming will come away with a large monetary judgment against the former strongman.

Collecting may be a different matter, which is why Bleming was unable to get a lawyer to take his case in the first place. But he told The Panama News that he does have counsel in Panama and that he expects to be able to identify assets that can be seized once a judgment is issued.

Since news of his lawsuit has been made public in several media around the world, Bleming says that he has been approached by several other victims of Noriega's abuses who are interested in what he has done. One, he said, is the widow of one of the officers executed for the October 1989 coup attempt, now a resident of Colorado. Judge Johnson earlier described Bleming's story as the stuff of which Hollywood thrillers are made and the 60-year-old Vietnam vet and sometime soldier of fortune said that a book about his experience is in the works.

However his roles in conflicts in Africa and elsewhere may be described, Bleming rejects the word "mercenary" for what he did in Panama. He wasn't being paid, but was a volunteer in a guerrilla struggle against a dictatorship, he says.

His arrest along with a Cuban-American comrade-in-arms was clearly the result of a betrayal and Bleming suspects one person in particular of turning him in and making off with money designed to purchase weapons and advance the struggle. About that, however, he only has suspicions based upon circumstances --- opportunities and events at the time and the man's later involvement in political scandals --- and as the man denies it The Panama News is not going to name him as a suspected traitor.

Many years after his ordeal for trying to overthrow the regime headed by General Torrijos, Bleming married a member of the Herrera family, one of the general's relatives on his mother's side. Bleming lives on a ranch in Lusk, Wyoming and is going through the paperwork to bring her to the United States.

Also in this section:
Carnival 2006
Torrijos opens a new legislative session
Noriega defaults in torture case
The other Moscoso administration museum theft
Oscar Arias wins in Costa Rica
Panama News Briefs