Manuel Noriega will stand trial in Paris next week on charges of laundering Colombian drug money in French banks.
The 76-year-old general, who ruled Panama from 1981 to 1989, was flown to Paris from Miami in late April on an international arrest warrant following his conviction in absentia in France in 1999.
Mr Noriega and his wife Felicidad were sentenced in France to ten years in prison but for years the ex-leader had fought extradition from his prison cell in Miami until a US Supreme Court ruling in March quashed his last appeal.
The general is facing a retrial on charges of laundering €2.3m from the Medellin cocaine cartel through the now defunct BCCI bank.
The money funnelled in the late 1980s was allegedly used by his wife and a shell company to buy three luxury apartments in Paris that have since been seized by the French state.
Noriega denies taking money from the cocaine dealers and claims the funds were from his brother's inheritance, his wife's fortune and payments made to him by the CIA.
Since Noriega's extradition to France on 27 April, his lawyers have lodged several appeals for his release pending trial, which have been repeatedly turned down, with judges citing a flight risk.
Meanwhile, Panama has asked France to hand him over to face trial for human rights atrocities in his home country, but Paris has said that will not happen before the case against him in France has run its course.
