American basketball star Brittney Griner’s freedom hinged on the release of a convicted Russian arms dealer, dubbed the “Dealer of Death” by his accusers, whose life story inspired a Hollywood movie.
Viktor Bout, a former Soviet military officer, is serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States on charges of conspiring to kill Americans, acquiring and exporting anti-aircraft missiles, and providing material support to a terrorist organization. Bout claims he is innocent.
The Kremlin has long called for his release, calling his 2012 sentence “baseless and biased”.
The Russian businessman who speaks six languages has evaded international arrest warrants and asset freezes for years. He was arrested in a 2008 sting operation led by US anti-drug agents in Thailand posing as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by the acronym FARC. He was eventually extradited to the US in 2010 after a protracted court case.
“Viktor Bout has been the number one enemy of the international arms trade for many years, fueling some of the world’s most violent conflicts,” said Preet Bharara, the US attorney when Bout was convicted in New York in 2012.
“He was finally brought to justice in an American court for agreeing to supply an impressive number of military-grade weapons to a terrorist organization declared to be committed to killing Americans.”
The trial focused on Bout’s role as a weapons supplier to the FARC, the guerrilla group that led an insurgency in Colombia until 2016. The US said the weapons were intended to kill US citizens.
But Bout’s history in the arms trade goes much further. He has been accused of assembling a fleet of cargo planes to smuggle military-grade weapons into conflict zones around the world since the 1990s, fueling bloody conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. Allegations of trafficking in Liberia led US authorities to freeze their US assets in 2004 and block all US transactions.
Bout – who allegedly used names like “Victor Anatoliyevich Bout”, “Victor But”, “Viktor Butt”, “Viktor Bulakin” and “Vadim Markovich Aminov” – is believed to have been the inspiration for the arms dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film “Lord of Guns”.
Bout has repeatedly stated that it operated a legitimate business and acted as a mere logistics provider. He is believed to be in his 50s, there is no certainty about his age due to passports and documents with different numbers.
Source: CNN Brasil
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