Overview
- President Donald Trump asserted that U.S. forces captured and exfiltrated Nicolás Maduro with strikes hitting Caracas, a claim not independently corroborated in the cited coverage.
- The reporting sets the claim against Operation Just Cause, when George H. W. Bush ordered the 1989 invasion of Panama to seize Manuel Noriega.
- Roughly 27,000 U.S. troops took part in that operation, which officially caused about 500 deaths, while NGOs estimate casualties in the thousands.
- After sheltering for about two weeks in the Vatican embassy, Noriega surrendered on January 3, 1990.
- Noriega was convicted in a Florida court on drug trafficking and money laundering charges, served time in the United States, France and Panama, and died in 2017 after his sentence was reduced for good behavior.