Manuel Noriega in critical condition after brain surgery in Panama
Noriega, 83, was moved from a prison to house arrest earlier this year in prepartion for surgery
Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is in critical condition after undergoing two brain surgeries.
Noriega, 83, underwent the first procedure Tuesday morning to remove a benign tumour from his brain. But after that surgery, doctors discovered a hemorrhage that forced them to go back in that afternoon, his daughters and lawyer said.
He was listed in critical condition in the intensive care unit of Santo Tomas public hospital in Panama City, attorney Ezra Angel said Tuesday night.
Angel said doctors had succeeded in stopping the bleeding during the second procedure and Noriega was returned to intensive care.
"He is sedated," the lawyer said. "His condition is critical after undergoing a [second] open brain surgery in less than eight hours."
Officials at the hospital did not comment or return calls.
The tumour was detected in the months after Noriega returned to Panama in December 2011 and was imprisoned for corruption and the killings of political opponents during his reign in the 1980s.
Doctors have said it grew unexpectedly recently and threatened the life of the former dictator, who has also suffered from vascular ailments and uses a wheelchair.
Supported by CIA initially
Noriega was transferred from prison to house arrest Jan. 29 to prepare for the procedure, which was originally scheduled for mid-February.
Noriega ruled Panama from 1983 to 1989, spying for the Central Intelligence Agency before the United States invaded in 1989, toppling his brutal regime and ending a drug trafficking career that associated him with Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar.
The U.S. sent in nearly 28,000 troops to seize Panama City and capture him in a house-to-house hunt. Noriega orchestrated the disappearance of scores of opponents, some of whose bodies later turned up in exhumations at the former Tocumen military base, bound and showing signs of torture.
He was then imprisoned in France for money laundering, before being returned in 2011 to Panama, where he had already been convicted in absentia.
"I hope that one day the country will know the truth about General Noriega, and the families who lost their loved ones can be free, close this chapter and move on," Panama's current President Juan Carlos Varela said on Tuesday.
With files from Reuters