He has seven aliases, a handful of passports, and has been described by US
officials as one of the world's most prolific arms traffickers, with clients
ranging from the Taliban to Liberian warlord Charles Taylor.
But today Viktor Bout sits in a cell in Thailand awaiting extradition to the
United States to face criminal charges, including conspiracy to kill US
nationals and provide material support to terrorists, that could put him behind
bars for life.
A 43-year-old former Soviet Air Force officer, Bout was the inspiration for the
2005 film Lord of War starring Nicholas Cage. He allegedly funneled
weapons to conflict zones in South
America, the Middle East and Africa.
Douglas Farah, co-author of a 2007 book about Bout titled The Merchant of Death,
says Bout had an uncanny ability to move weapons to trouble spots that were
inaccessible to most arms traffickers.
"As someone told me in the book, he was the ultimate mailman and you never
shoot the mailman," Farah says. "There were very few other people who could
deliver what he could deliver, across the African continent particularly, but
also in Afghanistan, where you have no roads, no trains, no other method of
transportation."
Bout says he runs a legitimate air-transport business and denies involvement in
illicit activities. He has long evaded attempts by the United Nations to block
his travel and financial activities.
"He was violating UN arms sanctions on different countries, but the punishment
for that is for the UN to say, 'You're a bad person, please don't do it again,'
and then you just keep on flying, which is what he did," Farah says. "So there
was no specific law of any specific country that he had violated, which made it
very difficult for the amorphous United Nations structure to ever do anything."
Thailand arrest
Bout was arrested in a luxury Bangkok hotel in March 2008 in an elaborate sting
operation in which US agents posed as arms buyers from the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Columbia (FARC).
A Thai appeals court ordered Bout's extradition last week, following more than
a decade of attempts by US and international law enforcement to bring him to
justice.
Russia fiercely opposes Bout's extradition. Speaking to reporters in Yerevan on
August 20, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that the court's
ruling was political.
"We regret what in my opinion is an unlawful, political decision that the
appeals court in Thailand has made," Lavrov said. "According to the information
available to us, this decision was made under very strong pressure from the
outside. This is sad."
Bout's extradition was originally scheduled to take place on August 25, but
Thai officials announced that would be delayed because all the necessary legal
procedures had not been completed.
Soviet connections
The son of an accountant and an auto mechanic, Bout was born in the Soviet
Union in Dushanbe, now the capital of Tajikistan. He has at times claimed to be
from Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, and has also been identified as Ukrainian.
Bout studied at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow and is
said to speak six languages. After graduating, he became an officer in the
Soviet Air Force and was initially posted to Angola, where he is alleged to
have worked for the KGB.
Bout, however, denies any connection to the Soviet intelligence agency.
Whether or not the speculation about KGB ties is true, analysts say Bout
appears to enjoy high-level connections among the Russian political elite.
"It is clear that he has a very high respect in Russia. How do you say it in
Russian? He has a 'roof' [protection from high officials] in Russia. And it is
very high," Farah told RFE/RL's Russian Service recently.
Bout left the military in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed and
began assembling a fleet of more than 50 cargo planes cast off by the
government for a private shipping business.
'The Merchant of Death'
In the ensuing years, the US indictment alleges, Bout and his associates
traveled the world and used a network of front companies to channel massive
quantities of arms and ammunition from poorly-guarded Soviet arsenals to
militants and despots in Africa, Asia, and South America.
According to Farah, Bout also transported attack helicopters, antiaircraft
systems, and antitank-mine systems - making it "highly unlikely" that he did
not have at least tacit support from Russian intelligence.
The most well-documented case involving Bout concerns former Liberian president
Charles Taylor, who is now on trial for war crimes for his involvement in
Sierra Leone's vicious civil war of the 1990s.
In UN documents, Bout was identified as a "dealer and transporter of weapons
and minerals [who] supported former President Taylor's regime in [an] effort to
destabilize Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds."
Bout also allegedly armed both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in
Afghanistan, various Congolese factions, Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, and
both sides of Angola's civil war. He has also been accused in Western media
reports of ferrying weapons to al-Qaeda and of delivering Russian arms to
Hezbollah in Lebanon ahead of the 2006 war with Israel.
In an interview with Britain's Channel 4 News last year, Bout admitted that his
planes brought weapons into Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, but said they were to
supply the government and not the Taliban. He has vehemently denied any
business dealings with al-Qaeda and maintains he ran a legitimate cargo
business.
A worldwide brand
Indeed, Farah says at least part of his fortune, at one time estimated to be
billions of dollars, was amassed by transporting everything from flowers to
chicken on the flights back from weapons deliveries.
In perhaps the most ironic twist of Bout's career, his companies were hired by
the United States and its contractors in the early 2000s to ship goods into
Iraq.
Most of these flights, which according to Farah numbered into the hundreds,
occurred after former president George W Bush had issued an executive order
making it illegal to do business with Bout, identifying him as a security
threat to the United States. Farah says that even after the mistake was
identified, the flights continued.
Bout's companies were reportedly used by the United Nations to transport
peacekeepers to Somalia, French troops to Rwanda, humanitarian goods to
post-tsunami Sri Lanka.
He also transported hostage negotiators to the Philippines, when in 2000, a
group of tourists were being held by the militant organization Abu Sayyaf - to
whom Bout had allegedly supplied arms in the past. He was also a key arms
supplier to the Bosnian Muslims during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
according to Farah.
After years of skirting officials and operating by proxy around the globe,
Interpol issued a 2002 arrest warrant for Bout in connection with a
money-laundering case. By that time, he had made his way back to Russia, where
the government said there was no evidence to suggest he had committed illegal
actions. It has maintained that position.
Analysts say that should Bout eventually be extradited, it would be a major
victory for the United States, which would have the opportunity to glean
valuable information about Russian intelligence and militant groups around the
world.
Speaking to reporters in Bangkok on August 20, Bout's wife, Alla, accused the
United States of leaning on the Thai authorities to extradite here husband.
"I believe that in this issue there's been tremendous pressure from the
American side," she said. "The Americans have been quite open in letting the
world know that they will exert pressure on the Thai side to get my husband
extradited to the US."
Copyright (c) 2010, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of
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