Panama's former military dictator Manuel Noriega was undergoing surgery today to remove a benign brain tumor, with his family hoping the 83-year-old's recovery will prevent his return to prison.
His daughter Thays Noriega told AFP that the surgeon had sent her a message saying he was already in the operating room of Santo Tomas Hospital, in Panama City, carrying out the delicate procedure.
"We have confidence in the doctors treating him and are following their recommendations," Thays Noriega said.
"We understand the operation had to be done given that his quality of life was steadily diminishing."
Manuel Noriega was a military intelligence officer who long worked for the CIA and who ruled his Central American country from 1983 until US forces invaded in 1989 to topple and capture him.
Relations between Noriega and the United States deteriorated as he defied pressure from US president Ronald Reagan to stand down, and as he appeared to shift allegiance to the then-Soviet Union, at the height of the Cold War.
After his ouster Noriega was taken prisoner to the United States, where he was tried and imprisoned on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.
In 2010 Noriega was extradited to France, where he was convicted on money laundering charges, then extradited to Panama in 2011, where he was sentenced for the disappearance of political opponents during his reign.
The former dictator is currently serving three 20-year prison sentences in Panama for those rights abuses.
Noriega was being held in El Renacer prison, on the banks of the Panama Canal. But in January he was granted temporary release into home detention to prepare for surgery, which had originally been scheduled for February.
Noriega is suffering from a benign meningioma, a tumor on membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord just inside the skull.
The tumor "has shown unexpected growth, which has accelerated the need for surgery to avoid damage to the brain," his personal doctor, Eduardo Reyes said, adding that Noriega is a "high-risk patient" because of his age and other ailments he suffers.
The question after the operation and his recovery period is whether he will be returned to his cell.
His family has argued that given his age and frailty he should remain under house arrest. Noriega has suffered several strokes, lung complications, prostate cancer and depression, his relatives say.
But authorities have given no indication that he would avoid the rest of his prison sentence.
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