The arrest on 6 March of 41-year-old Viktor Anatol’evich Bout in Bangkok continues to shine a most unwelcome (for some) spotlight on the shadowy world of the international arms trade, and will doubtless leave many governments, including the US, scrambling for cover as they attempt to limit the fallout from his arrest.
Bout was taken into custody in a conference room on the 27th floor of Bangkok’s five-star Sofitel hotel after reportedly attempting to sell armaments to Colombia’s FARC guerrillas.
His arrest involved not only the Royal Thai Police and the US Drug Enforcement Agency, but the Romanian Border Police, the Romanian Prosecutor’s Office Attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the Korps Politie Curacao of the Netherlands Antilles and the Danish National Police Security Services.
The following day, Michael Garcia, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Michele Leonhart, the Acting Administrator of the DEA, announced the unsealing of charges against Bout (aka “Boris,” Victor But,” “Viktor Budd,” “Viktor Butt,” “Viktor Bulakin,” “Vadim Markovich Aminov … and so on.
One of Bout’s three lawyers, Yan Dasgupta, claimed that, “Some [US] governmental officials at the moment of his detention tried to actually send him to United States without following proper extradition procedure prescribed by the law. He was doing everything in his power including physical resistance not to fly to the US”
The Russian embassy immediately hired Thai lawyer Lak Nitiwatvichan, who told reporters, “He was a military man. He has done nothing wrong. Thailand is a sovereign country, so since he was arrested in Thailand, he is willing to be prosecuted under Thai law”
Bout’s organizational skills have impressed many western observers. Misha Glenny, author of McMafia, a study of global criminal networks, told ISN Security Watch when asked about Bout, “He’s a spectacular success - my own personal opinion. […] “You generally find behind spectacular success of criminals shady government support.
“That Bout has been arrested is a very positive sign. […] The influence of gangsters in Russia is diminishing,” Glenny concluded.
Bout’s trials promises to be a unique and disturbing peak into the shadowy world of illicit arms trafficking, and the US must be nervously contemplating what he might say in court about his transports flights into Baghdad and Afghanistan as a Pentagon contractor.
Perhaps however, Viktor Bout is merely misunderstood; as his wife Alla recently observed in her first interview with a western newspaper: “He’s a poet, not the lord of war”
The newsmedia don’t seem to care much for the story of Bout. We did a movie based on the guy, ‘Lord of War’ and, when he is jailed in Thailand and a extradition battle ensues between the US and Russia, no one pays attention. At all. He was due to be extradited at the end of last month. Heard any news? (Okay, here's one article.)
If only someone would make a film about this… then the media could, LIKE, interview the lead actress, LIKE, and it’d be so, LIKE, awesome!