Panama drug money a US-run 'banking scheme'

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"I say with much humility and respect that this is an imaginary banking scheme," Noriega told the court in Spanish through his interpreter on the second day of his trial.

"I will have the opportunity to produce documents that show that I was a victim of a conspiracy mounted by the United States against me," he said.

Noriega, who ruled Panama from 1983 to 1989, spent 20 years in a Miami cell for drug trafficking and money laundering and now faces the prospect of another decade in a French prison if convicted.

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