Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is suing Activision to court over his depiction in Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
Noriega appears in Black Ops II in the mission called “Suffer with Me” as both an in-game character and in news clips. Courthouse News Service reports that Noriega, who is currently serving a prison sentence in Panama, is suing Activision, the game’s publisher, for “blatant misuse, unlawful exploitation and misappropriation for economic gain.”
The filing asserts that Noriega, the plaintiff in the suit, is portrayed “as a kidnapper, murderer and enemy of the state. An objective of one portion of ‘Black Ops II‘ is solely to capture plaintiff.”
The lawsuit also claims that Activision‘s use of Noriega in the game “caused damage” to him and created “the false impression that defendants are authorized to use plaintiff’s image and likeness. This caused plaintiffs to receive profits they would not have otherwise received.”
“Defendants deliberately and systematically misappropriated plaintiff’s likeness to increase revenues and royalties, at the expense of plaintiff and without the consent of plaintiff,” the suit continues.
In the game, the characters in Black Ops II refer to Noriega as “a piece of shit,” “asshole” and “old pineapple face himself, Manuel Noriega.”
The former dictator, Courthouse News Service adds, is suing for punitive damages for “lost profits.”
Call of Duty: Black Ops II was released in November 2012, so it must took that much time, until the game reached the prison in Panama…
A bit of information about Noriega in Wikipedia:
Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno is a former Panamanian politician and soldier. He was military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989. In the 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States he was removed from power, captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to the United States. Noriega was tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering in April 1992.
Noriega‘s U.S. prison sentence ended in September 2007. pending the outcome of extradition requests by both Panama and France, for convictions in absentia for murder in 1995 and money laundering in 1999. France was granted its extradition request in April 2010. He arrived in Paris on April 27, 2010, and after a re-trial as a condition of the extradition, he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in jail in July 2010. A conditional release was granted on September 23, 2011, for Noriega to be extradited to serve 20 years in Panama. He arrived in Panama on December 11, 2011.
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