Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Drug Convict Tells of Payoff to Noriega

Manuel A. Noriega smiled as he was handed a briefcase containing $500,000 cash from cocaine suppliers in a meeting with them in Medellin, Colombia, in 1983, a government witness said at the former Panamanian dictator’s trial in Miami. Gabriel Taboada, a convicted drug trafficker seeking to reduce his federal prison sentence, was the second witness to place Noriega at the meeting with Medellin cartel figures. Roberto Striedinger, a former pilot for the cartel, earlier testified that he saw Noriega at the meeting but gave no account of a briefcase transaction. The government is trying to prove that Noriega accepted bribes to allow cocaine shipments to pass through Panama.