Accused arms dealer Viktor Bout pleads not guilty

[struggle4progress]

Source: BBC

... The former Russian air force officer is accused of trying to sell arms to Colombian rebels and supplying weapons used in Africa and the Middle East ...

Mr Bout faces 25 years in prison if convicted.

In a statement, US Attorney General Eric Holder called Mr Bout one of the world's most prolific arms traffickers.

Mr Bout is being held without bail in a high-security prison in New York City pending trial. He is next due in court in January ...


Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11781633

[WhiteTara]

1. A small slowdown of weapons. That's good news

to a world struggling for peace.

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2. Prosecutors caught in tight spot (Bangkok Post)

Published: 18/11/2010 at 12:00 AM

Is this the first time you have felt uneasy extraditing a person given the difficult balancing act involving the powerful US and Russia?

Yes, they are superpowers that wanted to intervene in the authority of our judicial officials despite our firm stance that although we are a small country, we are an independent sovereign state. They should respect our decision and steer clear of any intervention ... We've followed international rules and everything can be justified.

When did the US contact Thailand to seek the extradition?

Late afternoon of Friday, Nov 12. But all the papers were received on Monday, Nov 15. The Foreign Ministry then asked the Justice Ministry to inform us about the request and asked us to coordinate the extradition process which dealt mainly with legal matters. At that time we thought we could get ready to extradite Mr Bout by Tuesday and all parties concerned were informed. The whole extradition process should have been confidential for the sake of the suspect's safety ...

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/206912/prosecutors-caught-in-tight-spot

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

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4. Arrested Arms Dealer's Planes Flew U.S. Missions in Iraq (ABC News 2008)

Viktor Bout Was an International Fugitive at the Time His Planes Were Used by the U.S.
By JUSTIN ROOD and MADDY SAUER
March 6, 2008

When U.S. officials announce the arrest of a notorious arms dealer and drug-runner this afternoon, the fact that his planes flew U.S. supply missions in Iraq will likely go unmentioned.

In a January 2005 letter to Congress, then-Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz admitted the Defense Department "did conduct business with companies that, in turn, subcontracted work to second-tier providers who leased aircraft owned by companies associated with Mr. Bout."

At the time, Bout was already a wanted international fugitive. Intelligence officials had considered Bout one of the greatest threats to U.S. interests, in the same league as al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden. Interpol had issued a warrant for his arrest; the United Nations Security Council had restricted his travel.

But that didn't stop U.S. government contractors from paying Bout-controlled firms roughly $60 million to fly supplies into Iraq in support of the U.S. war effort, according to a book released last year by two reporters who investigated Bout. And it didn't prevent the U.S. military from giving Bout's pilots millions of dollars in free airplane fuel while they were flying U.S. supply flights ...

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4400141&page=1

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5. To Viktor go the spoils: War and Terror Inc. (Farah | WaPo 2007)

By Douglas Farah
Sunday, September 23, 2007

Immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush declared that the rest of the world had to decide whether it was with us or against us. But it turns out that in the new world order, you can be both -- and make a boatload of money in the process.

Take Viktor Bout, a Russian air-transport magnate and the world's premier gray- market arms provider. Every year, warlords, gangsters, militiamen and terrorists kill tens of thousands of people in wars that are only sporadically reported to the outside world. They do their butchery using weapons obtained and delivered, to all sides of these conflicts, by Bout and his ilk. These are the real weapons of mass destruction in the post-Cold War world, taking lives and shattering communities from the slums of Baghdad to the jungles of Colombia, from the streets of Beirut to the impoverished diamond-mining hamlets of West Africa.

No ideology and few moral considerations guide Bout. His new class of global entrepreneurs operates under virtually no international constraints, reaping hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves and corrupt officials in what's left of the military and intelligence services of the former Soviet bloc, whose vast, uncontrolled arsenals are the source of most of the lethal cargo. While the conduct of private contractors such as Blackwater USA -- the American security company back in the news last week after its officers were involved in a deadly Baghdad shootout -- come under some scrutiny and government control, not even such minimal accountability is required of the world's foremost weapons merchants.

These arms entrepreneurs almost always escape international sanctions because they don't work for any one state but have proved useful to many ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092101544.html

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6. Meet Viktor Bout, the Real-Life 'Lord of War' (Farah | MoJo 2007)

... It is highly unlikely he could have flown aircraft out of Russia and acquired huge amounts of weapons from Soviet arsenals without the direct protection of Russian intelligence ... The State Department, under a congressional inquiry initiated by Senator Russell Feingold, found it had used Bout companies, acknowledged it, and stopped. Paul Wolfowitz, while at DOD, did not respond to queries for nine months, then acknowledged that DOD contractors had subcontracted to Bout companies. Despite the public revelation, the congressional inquiry, the executive order, and a subsequent Treasury Department order freezing the assets of Bout and his closest associates, the flights continued for many months, at least until the end of 2005. The Air Force cut him off immediately, but other branches of the military continued to use him ... Bout, through an intermediary, approached the CIA and FBI immediately after 9/11, and offered his services in helping to oust the Taliban if he were paid tens of millions of dollars for his efforts ...

http://motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/meet-viktor-bout-real-life-lord-war

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7. Five reasons the US went after 'merchant of death' Viktor Bout (CSM)

... In the 1990s, Viktor Bout ran his cargo business out of the United Arab Emirates and is suspected of having links to militants in the region, such as Hezbollah. Any inside information on these groups and their operations is of potential value to the US intelligence community ... Bout’s air cargo business was active in Afghanistan, supplying the Northern Alliance prior to its 2001 US-backed defeat of the Taliban government. By some accounts, Bout allegedly shipped arms to the Taliban during and after this period and may have useful knowledge ... Viktor Bout was arrested in Bangkok in 2008 during a sting operation set by the US Drug Enforcement Agency posing as FARC rebels ...

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/1117/Five-reasons-the-US-went-after-merchant-of-death-Viktor-Bout/It-sends-a-message

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8. BOOK REVIEW: Victor Bout, the merchant of death

Book Review & Art
Written by Martyn Drakard
Wednesday, 13 October 2010 15:30
Book: Merchant of Death
Author: Douglas Farah & Stephen Braun
Publisher: Wiley Publishers, 2007
Volume: 308 pages ...

... no major power at the time was worried about “a few planeloads of arms” making their way into Africa; only later did they realize the human and economic impact. Thousands murdered, raped and displaced; weapons shipped into Goma, coltan and blood diamonds shipped out. Yet, according to the authors, though the US, the UK, South Africa, Belgium and the UN targeted the Bout empire, they had all used his network or benefited from his operations ...

http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10476&Itemid=102

[Blue_Tires]

9. i have a feeling he'll only get a slap on the wrist...

if that

[struggle4progress]

11. I'm more inclined to think he's in the category of onetime CIA assets

like Manuel Noriega or Saddam Hussein -- allowed to go his way while useful, and disposed of when clearly uncontrollable

Bout has played both sides of many fights for a long time, and it's quite possible he's enjoyed some double-agent or triple-agent games, so maybe there are some deals to be cut -- I dunno

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10. Foreign Policy: Why Viktor Bout Has Russia Worried (Farah | NPR Aug 2010)

by DOUGLAS FARAH
August 23, 2010

... Bout's importance was not just that he exploited the gaping holes in the new world economic order to reportedly move hundreds of thousands of weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition to obscure corners of the world to fan conflicts involving unspeakable human rights atrocities. Nor is it that he was simultaneously able to reap millions of dollars in profits by flying for the United States government, the United Nations, the British government, and other legal entities.

What made Bout unique was his ability to merge private profiteering with state interests in the new globalized world of unfettered weapons flows. Dubbed the "Merchant of Death," Bout, often under the protection of his Russian superiors in the military intelligence structure, created a one-stop shop for weapons that could be delivered virtually anywhere in the world. His access to former Soviet arsenals, aircraft, and crews would not have been possible without state protection.

It was this quantum leap in the ability to provide rag-tag and violent groups like the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone and Charles Taylor in Liberia that drew the attention of U.S. and European intelligence services in the mid-1990s. As rebels launched their campaigns of mass amputations and systematic rape to take over lucrative diamond fields, they used weapons purchased through Bout and often paid with commodities.

But it was the same access to rogue aircraft in growing swaths of ungoverned spaces in Africa and Afghanistan that made him useful to the governments that were pursuing him. Need supplies for U.S. troops flown into Baghdad in 2003 when U.S. forces lacked airlift capacity? Bout's planes were available. Need to fly emergency food aid into the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Bout had the planes and pilots. From gladiolas to frozen chicken to AK-47s, Bout was the deliveryman par excellence ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129372840

[TheLastMohican]

12. The smart move by Russia

would be to grab George Soros in a similar move.
The man has done plenty of damage to the world economy. This so-called "investment banker" is the type of vulture who should also face 25 years.

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14. I don't see much similarity between Soros and Bout

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13. Feds: Russian arms suspect not beyond law's reach

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press © 2010 The Associated Press
Nov. 17, 2010, 3:36PM

... The Russian Foreign Ministry had said Thailand's decision to extradite him was "unlawful," purely political and resulted from U.S. pressure. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks broadcast on Russian television Tuesday that the Thai government's decision was "an example of glaring injustice."

Messages seeking comment left Wednesday with the Russian Mission to the United Nations and the Russian Embassy in Washington were not immediately returned.

For several months, U.S. and Russian officials had fought for control of Bout, flexing muscles in a manner that seemed to threaten cooperation on arms control, nuclear weapons curbs and the war in Afghanistan. Department of State spokesman P.J. Crowley has acknowledged possible "ripples" in relations with Moscow but said any concerns could be managed ...

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7299379.html