Manuel Noriega dead: Panama's former dictator dies aged 83

Ex-leader had suffered a number of ailments in his final years

Former Panama dictator Manuel Noriega gives an address in 1988 (AFP)

Former Panama dictator Manuel Noriega has died, aged 83.

There was no immediate information on the cause of death, which occurred late on Monday.

Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela tweeted that “the death of Manuel A. Noriega closes a chapter in our history.”

The former US ally and suspected CIA informant was ousted by an American invasion in 1989, when Panama was openly being used as a staging post for cocaine shipments.

Noriega later served a 17-year drug sentence in the United States.

He spent the first two decades after his ouster in US and French jails and the final years of his life in a Panamanian prison for murder of political opponents during his 1983-89 regime.

In recent years, Noriega had suffered various ailments, including high blood pressure and bronchitis.

In 2016, doctors detected the rapid growth of a benign brain tumour that had first been spotted four years earlier. In January of this year, a court granted him house arrest to prepare for surgery on the tumour.

In 2014 Noriega sued the makers of the Call of Duty video games for casting him as a villain.

Additional reporting by agencies