text: NORIEGA JURORS SELECTED PROSECUTION TO OPEN IN CASE ON MONDAY - Sun Sentinel
  MIAMI -- Nine women and three men were selected on Friday to sit as jurors at deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Antonio Noriega's drug and racketeering trial.
  "You are now embarked on a very important project," U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler told the jurors after they were sworn in. He advised them to avoid news coverage of the trial and not to discuss the case with anyone.
  The jury was selected six years to the day after a Panamanian doctor, Hugo Spadafora, was tortured and beheaded, reportedly on Noriega's orders. It was an irony noted by members of the Panamanian press in Miami covering the trial.
  His head has never been found, but photos of his mutilated body were distributed in Panama and helped cement grassroots opposition to Noriega's iron-fisted rule.
  A Panamanian journalist said Noriega is highly superstitious and would be concerned about the jury's being selected not only on the anniversary of the Spadafora abduction, but also on a Friday the 13th.
  "I'm sure he's thinking about this right now," said Tomas Cabal, correspondent for the newspaper Panama America and PRC Channel 4 TV in Panama.
  Noriega's trial is scheduled to begin with an opening statement from prosecutors on Monday morning. The trial is expected to last three to five months. Defense attorneys have asked to postpone their opening statement until the close of the government's case.