Manuel Noriega, the notorious Panamanian dictator, is in hospital today to treat hypertension and an apparent stroke, the Associated Press said.

An ambulance took the 77-year-old convicted criminal from his cell at El Renacer to Hospital Santo Tomas in Panama City.

The National Police issued a statement today saying Noriega had high blood pressure and a brain hemorrhage.

The Associated Press reported Monday afternoon that doctors in Panama said Noriega was now in "stable" condition. Health minister Franklin Vergara was quoted as saying that Noriega was "conscious and well oriented" and would be kept under observation fora further 48 hours at Santo Tomas hospital in Panama City.

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France extradited Noriega to Panama in December to serve 20 years for murdering political opponents in the 1980s, BBC said.

He spent time in American and French jails for money laundering and drug trafficking.

Noriega’s lawyers want him released from prison to serve his sentence at home, a common practice in Panama, BBC said.

While he was never the official Panamanian leader, the former general lorded over the Central American nation from 1983 to 1989.

Invading American troops arrested him, and an American court sentenced him to 20 years in 1992 for trafficking, money laundering and racketeering, Reuters said.

French officials convicted him of laundering money through drug cartels to buy property in Paris and sentenced him to prison in 2010.

Noriega was once a CIA ally.

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