The future of two American citizens detained in Russia may hinge on the release of a convicted Russian arms dealer, dubbed the “Merchant of Death” by his accusers, whose life story has already inspired a Hollywood movie.
Viktor Bout, a former Soviet military officer, is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States on charges of conspiring to kill Americans, acquire and export anti-aircraft missiles, and provide material support to a terrorist organization. Bout argues that he is innocent.
The Kremlin has long called for Bout’s release, criticizing his 2012 sentence as “baseless and biased”.
THE CNN reported Wednesday that the Biden administration has offered Bout in a possible trade for basketball star Brittney Griner and former US Marine Paul Whelan, according to sources.
The same day, Griner testified in Russian court as part of his trial on drug charges following his February arrest at a Moscow airport. Whelan was arrested on alleged espionage charges in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison in a trial that US officials said was unfair.
Their families have asked the White House to secure their release, including through prisoner exchanges if necessary. Now, at the heart of that offering is Bout, a man who has evaded international arrest warrants and asset freezes for years.
The Russian businessman, who speaks six languages, was arrested in a 2008 police operation led by US anti-drug agents in Thailand posing as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC. Bout was eventually extradited to the US in 2010 after a lengthy court process.
“Viktor Bout has been the number one enemy of the international arms trade for many years, fueling some of the most violent conflicts around the world,” said Preet Bharara, a US attorney in Manhattan when Bout was sentenced in New York in 2012.
“He was ultimately brought to justice in an American courtroom for providing an impressive number of military-grade weapons to a terrorist organization committed to killing Americans.”
The trial deepened Bout’s role in supplying the FARC with weapons. The US said the weapons were intended to kill American citizens.
But Bout’s history in the arms trade extends much further. He is accused of assembling a fleet of cargo planes to transport military-grade weapons to conflict zones around the world since the 1990s, fueling bloody conflicts from Liberia to Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.
Allegations of activities in Liberia prompted US authorities to freeze his assets in 2004 and blocked any US transactions.
Bout repeatedly claims that he operated legitimate businesses and acted as a mere logistics provider. He is believed to be in his 50s, with his age in doubt because of different passports and documents.
“His early days are a mystery,” he told the CNN in 2010 Douglas Farah, member of the International Center for Assessment and Strategy and co-author of a book on Bout.
Farah told Mother Jones magazine in 2007 that, according to his multiple passports, Bout was born in 1967 in Tajikistan, the son of an accountant and a mechanic. He said Bout graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages, a well-known school for Russian military intelligence.
“He was a Soviet officer, probably a lieutenant, who simply saw the opportunities presented after the collapse of the USSR. Bout took advantage of aircraft abandoned on Moscow runways, unable to fly because of lack of money for fuel or maintenance; huge stockpiles of weapons; and the growing demand for these weapons from traditional Soviet customers and emerging armed groups from Africa to the Philippines,” Farah told the magazine.
Bout said he worked as a military officer in Mozambique. Others said it was actually Angola, where Russia had a large military presence at the time, Farah told CNN . He became well-known when the United Nations began investigating him in the early 1990s, with US help.
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 Arms”.
In 2002, Jill Dougherty of CNN , met with Bout in Moscow and questioned him about the various allegations against him, such as selling weapons to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and dealings with rebels in Africa. Bout denied all allegations.
“It’s a false claim and it’s a lie,” he said. “I’m not afraid. I haven’t done anything in my life that I should be afraid of.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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