U.S. Discusses Dropping Efforts to Extradite Noriega if He Flees

WASHINGTON — Amid signs of new U.S. resolve to ease Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega from power, Justice and State Department officials met Tuesday to discuss dropping U.S. efforts to extradite Noriega on federal drug charges should he flee Panama into exile.

The meeting at the White House came as Administration officials publicly praised the Spanish government for offering refuge to Noriega, an offer that reportedly rests on a U.S. pledge to abandon criminal charges against the military ruler.

That decision has not been formally made, but President Reagan was “leaning in that direction” Tuesday, said an Administration official who declined to be named.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater also declined to dampen speculation about a U.S. deal with Noriega, saying that Spain was “trying to be helpful” by offering him asylum.

A second Administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Fitzwater’s remarks suggest that if Noriega were to flee to Spain, the United States would not necessarily pursue him. That official also said that “nothing has been hammered in stone.”

Dropping criminal pursuit of Noriega would represent a turnabout in U.S. policy. Noriega’s representatives are believed to have proposed to the State Department last November that the military dictator resign in exchange for immunity from U.S. prosecution, but that proposal was never answered.

Noriega subsequently was indicted Feb. 5 by federal grand juries in Miami and Tampa, Fla., on drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges. That unleashed a diplomatic crisis that has plunged Panama close to bankruptcy and led the United States to recognize its president in hiding, Eric A. Delvalle, as Panama’s true leader.

Justice Department officials Tuesday were described as cool to the possibility of dropping their criminal pursuit of Noriega, the capstone of drug-smuggling probes that have led federal agents through Central America and the Caribbean. There “is not much enthusiasm around here for any of this,” one Justice Department official said of the proposed deal, although the department will do “what the President wants to do.”

Under the proposal reportedly discussed at Tuesday’s White House session, U.S. prosecutors would not have to seek formal dismissal of charges against Noriega but would simply promise Spain that no request would be made to bring him to the United States for trial.

“A kind of gentlemen’s agreement” not to extradite Noriega would suffice, one source explained.

The President dodged questions about U.S. willingness to bargain for Noriega’s departure, saying that he “can’t answer any of those questions with what’s going on now, the process that’s going on.”

“All I can tell you is, we do want Noriega out of there and a return to civilian, democratic government,” Reagan said during a White House photo session Tuesday morning.

Later, referring to recent Administration efforts to pressure Noriega into quitting, Reagan told congressional leaders that “we have done these things because, until such time as democratic government is restored in Panama, we cannot continue relations on a business-as-usual basis.”

Meanwhile, supporters of Delvalle’s shadow government won new orders in New York and Miami federal courts barring further transfers of Panamanian government assets in the United States to the Noriega regime.

A federal district judge in New York imposed a temporary injunction barring several U.S. banks from transferring Panamanian assets to the cash-starved Noriega regime. The injunction replaced a restraining order that would have expired Tuesday.

A federal judge in Miami extended for 10 days a restraining order preventing Panama’s national airline from removing its planes and other assets from the United States without the permission of Delvalle’s representatives.

In related matters, Panamanian economists and bankers supporting Delvalle met for the second day with about a dozen State Department officials in what their U.S. attorney called the beginning of “post-Noriega” planning.

A spokesman for the Panamanian group, who asked not to be identified, said the group’s planning is aimed at avoiding a panic that could further drain Panamanian banks when they are reopened after Noriega’s departure.

“We hope the Federal Reserve System or some other mechanism can be used to create public confidence,” the spokesman said. “We don’t need long-term loans, just some short-term credit to prevent a collapse of the financial system.”

Times staff writers James Gerstenzang and Don Shannon contributed to this story.