More on Viktor Bout: Thailand Extradites 'Merchant of Death' to

[Flashermac]

He'll probably work a deal, get a new ID and go live in Seattle.

 

 

[chuckwoww]

Maybe go on Larry King and get his own reality show...Let's Make An Arms Deal?

[shygye]

What have the Russians ever done for Thailand?

 

 

... sent them hookers.

[Hugh_Hoy]

...and quality tourists.

 

HH

[LizardKing]

What have the Russians ever done for Thailand?

 

Introduced Speedos to the beach?

 

Or was that Germans?

[Flashermac]

Moscow slams Bout extradition

 

 

Moscow has blasted Thailand's extradition of suspected arms smuggler Viktor Bout to the US, calling it a result of "unprecedented political pressure".

 

The independence of the Thai judicial system has to be called into question given the US "interference", Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying yesterday. He described the extradition as illegal.

 

Russia's furious response came just after Thai corrections officers handed over Mr Bout to US Drug Enforcement Agency agents yesterday. He was whisked from Bang Kwang Central Prison to Don Mueang airport before being bundled aboard a chartered jet bound for the US.

 

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva defended the government's decision yesterday by saying it was impossible for Thailand to please everyone.

 

[color:red]Thailand has been under intense pressure from Moscow and Washington with both demanding that the former Soviet air force pilot, dubbed the "Merchant of Death" by a former British government minister, be handed over to them after his March 2008 arrest in Bangkok in a sting operation involving undercover US agents.[/color]

 

"Thailand has to do what it has to," Mr Abhisit said.

 

He said the government had to extradite Mr Bout as the Appeal Court had ordered it and the court did not consider his case to be a political one not subject to the extradition treaty with the US. Nor did it see a reason not to extradite him.

 

The detention of Mr Bout was due to end this Saturday and it was time for the government to make a decision, he said, referring to the Appeal Court's order on Aug 20 for the three-month detention of Mr Bout pending the extradition process.

 

Acting government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said the legal case of Mr Bout in Thailand was considered final and there could be no appeal against the extradition order.

 

If the extradition had not taken place by Saturday, Thai authorities would have had to release Mr Bout.

 

Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said Thailand's action complied with its extradition treaty with the US. Mr Bout could defend himself in the US and Russian authorities could help him.

 

Foreign Ministry acting spokesman Thani Thongpakdi said the ministry had kept Russia informed of developments relating to the extradition of Mr Bout.

 

About 30 heavily armed commandoes from the Crime Suppression Division and four US agents took Mr Bout from Bang Kwang Central Prison in Nonthaburi about 12.30pm yesterday. There were two convoys of cars to prevent anyone from determining which convoy Mr Bout was in en route to Don Muang Airport.

 

Officials stopped off at the Immigration Police Office on Chaeng Watthana Road to carry out routine departure procedures for the Russian before heading to Don Muang.

 

Mr Bout and the US agents took off from the airport at 1.27pm.

 

The Russian's wife, Alla Bout, arrived at Bang Kwang Central Prison 10 minutes after her husband had been escorted away. She also slammed the extradition.

 

"Everything was carried out hurriedly and secretively, like thieves do," she said.

 

"In this situation, the Thai government acted like an American puppet."

 

Mr Bout's Thai lawyer, Lak Nitiwatanavichan, said he would take legal action against the people who ordered the extradition of his client to the US and travel to the US to help Mr Bout.

 

The Russian had previously appealed against the Criminal Court's order early last month to dismiss money-laundering and fraud charges against him. Both charges had come from the US which later wanted to drop them in order to speed up his extradition.

 

Mr Bout's appeal was viewed as an attempt to prolong his stay in Thailand.

 

The Appeal Court on Aug 20 approved Mr Bout's extradition to face trial on four terrorism-related charges that could see him jailed for life. The Appeal Court's decision overturned a lower court's ruling that had rejected the US extradition request.

 

The 43-year-old Russian is accused by the US of using cargo planes to deliver arms to countries in Africa, South America and the Middle East.

 

Mr Bout has maintained he ran a legitimate air cargo business.

 

 

 

BP

 

[Flashermac]

 

Giving Bout the boot took a week to plan

 

 

 

Moving alleged Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout out of the country was a highly secretive operation that became visible by the bands of snipers and commando escorts involved.

 

Maximum security measures were well planned and rehearsed over and over to ensure nothing went awry.

 

Yesterday morning, the Bang Kwang maximum security prison in Nonthaburi was filled with snipers from the Crime Suppression Division who scoured every inch inside and around the prison.

 

A commando team led by CSD acting commander Supisarn Pakdiparuenart and a US Drug Enforcement Administration team came to collect the 43-year-old former Soviet air force pilot at the prison at 12.50pm.

 

He was then escorted from his cell by a number of warders as he was discharged from the prison. Mr Bout had his fingerprints taken and underwent a physical examination.

 

He was whisked into a vehicle as part of a police convoy. It was one of two convoys to leave the prison; the other to divert attention.

 

Mr Bout was then taken to Don Muang airport.

 

He was wearing a bullet-proof vest and a Kevlar safety helmet and was cuffed at the wrists and the ankles. The "Merchant of Death", as he was dubbed by a former British government minister, showed no signs of emotion or worry.

 

He was even heard whistling a song repeatedly during the short trip to the airport, a security source said.

 

"Aren't we going to Swampypoom airport?" Mr Bout was quoted by the source as asking shortly after leaving the prison. The reply from the escorting officers was that Don Muang was more convenient and it was easier to maintain security.

 

The authorities made a brief stop at the immigration police office on Chaeng Watthana Road. Mr Bout signed papers formalising his extradition procedure.

 

On arrival at Don Muang, he was taken to the VIP room where he went through a final immigration clearance. Mr Bout was then escorted by Thai special forces to a chartered jet which took off at 1.27pm.

 

The abrupt departure of the alleged Russian arms smuggler left his wife distraught. Ms Alla Bout walked into Bang Kwang prison holding two bags of food for her husband. She burst into tears on being told he had been taken to the airport. She arrived at Don Muang airport too late to see him off yesterday.

 

"What can be done any more [now that] my husband is already extradited?" she asked, looking stressed.

 

Ms Bout told the Bangkok Post she felt very bad and still did not know what to do.

 

She has been in contact with the Russian embassy and would decide later what further steps she would take.

 

 

BP

 

 

 

[Pom Michael]

Bang Kwang - 12:50

Took off - 13:27

 

After a stop at Chaeng Wattana, and through Immigration?

 

Wow - wish normal service was that quick!

[Flashermac]

Bout wife plans to sue Thai government

 

 

The wife of alleged Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is planning to sue the Thai government in a bid to fund his legal defence in the United States.

 

In an exclusive interview with the Bangkok Post, Alla Bout also said her husband and the family had been offered political asylum in the US if Mr Bout was willing to disclose information about international arms trafficking.

 

Mrs Bout has not spoken to her husband since he was extradited from Thailand on Tuesday following a protracted legal battle between his legal team and American law enforcement agencies. The case has strained diplomatic ties between Russia and the US.

 

She said she spoke on Thursday to Alexander Otchaynov, the Russian deputy consul in New York, who had been in contact with her husband. On Wednesday, Mr Bout, 43, pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan court to multiple charges, including conspiring to kill US nationals, which carries a life sentence.

 

''While on the flight to America, the American guards tried to apply psychological pressure on him, trying to convince him very hard to cooperate with them and to admit something he did not do and did not say,'' Mrs Bout said she was informed by Mr Otchaynov.

 

''In exchange for that, they promised him political asylum in America and also political asylum for his wife and daughter in America, but he refused. This is especially strange since the Americans maintain that he is such a bad person,'' she said.

 

There has been speculation in the US media that Bout will strike a plea bargain in the case, which could see political and military brass in Russia embarrassed by revelations about their involvement in the international arms trade.

 

Bout was arrested in an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting operation in Bangkok in early 2008, during which the US alleges he offered to sell weapons to DEA agents posing as Colombian rebels.

 

Mrs Bout said she will leave Thailand within a week after getting legal documents from the Thai courts to prepare her law suit against the Thai government. Her husband's legal team argues that the extradition to the United States was illegal as there were two other court cases pending when the decision was made and Bout was technically still in the custody of the court. Mrs Bout says she and her husband don't have enough money to employ a private lawyer in the US.

 

''The Thai government publicly declared they would not interfere with the court decisions, but in this case they took someone who was in the custody of the court. He was not in the custody of the government.

 

''This was judicially wrong; they showed disrespect for their own judges, the Thai government.''

 

She said she had received only consular support from the Russian government, but was hopeful of some financial backing from private benefactors to conduct the defence case.

 

Mrs Bout, who has spoken to her husband's court-appointed lawyer in the US, also complained about inhumane treatment meted out to him before his extradition, saying he was stripped naked by officers from the Crime Suppression Division. She said the story was repeated by another Russian consulate official in New York.

 

''On Tuesday morning, they stripped him naked and they took absolutely everything from including his shoes and the telephone books with his contacts and the telephone contacts of his lawyers _ all of them. They left him naked, absolutely naked. After that, they bought him some dirty sports shoes which do not belong to him. The prison authorities felt sorry for him and they gave him the cheap slippers.

 

''There is no extradition law that says he has to be stripped naked. It is merely the physical humiliation of the human being.''

 

Mrs Bout, who is hoping to get a visa to the United States, said her husband was being held in solitary confinement, but he was not complaining as it was like a ''five-star hotel'' compared to the Bangkok jail.

 

''The Americans have not given him the right to make a telephone call,'' she said. ''He is being detained in solitary confinement.

 

''He has no belongings and no money. The American lawyer gave him $100 so he can buy basic necessities like underwear and a toothbrush.''

 

Mrs Bout said she was not sure her husband would receive a fair trial under the US jury system because of negative and incorrect media reports about him. ''I'm afraid because of the attacks on Viktor, the jury might not be impartial. Public opinion has already been formed.''

 

 

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