by Patrick Radden Keefe, Taking Note
As tensions intensified between the United States and Russia over the crisis in South Ossetia, one person who has no doubt been watching the story very closely is the notorious gun runner Viktor Bout, who is currently sitting in a jail cell in Bangkok. Known as the “Merchant of Death,” Bout is widely believed to have been the most prolific smuggler of black market weapons during the 1990s, who flouted UN embargoes to fuel the bloody conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and other African countries. Bout played a clever game of jurisdictional arbitrage through much of his career, hopscotching from one country to another, always a step ahead of national laws and law enforcement. Eventually he settled in Moscow, where despite an Interpol red notice and the fact that he was wanted in numerous countries, he lived openly, and with impunity, going so far as to grant an interview for a cover story in the New York Times Magazine.
In March, authorities finally caught up with Bout, when agents from America’s Drug Enforcement Agency set up a sting, and arrested him for the support he has provided to the FARC rebels in Colombia. In June, Attorney General Michael Mukasey visited Thailand, praised the Royal Thai Police for their cooperation in the effort, and maintained that Bout would soon be extradited to face trial in the United States.
But Bout’s actual extradition proceedings have been postponed, and it appears that having provided a safe haven for the arms trafficker in the past, Moscow is pressuring the U.S. State Department to either let him go or release him to Russian custody. Last month, thirty-five members of the House of Representatives signed a letter to the Prime Minister of Thailand insisting that Bout’s extradition should proceed as quickly as possible, and noting their concern about reports that “the Russian government is attempting to negatively influence this process to prevent Bout’s legal extradition to the United States.”
It is not clear how the ongoing negotiations and recriminations over South Ossetia and the agreement for a missile shield in Poland will affect the case of Viktor Bout—whether the tough rhetoric of President Bush and Condoleezza Rice will harden American resolve to extradite Bout and try him in an American court, or whether precisely that harsh rhetoric, and the fact that realistically, Washington does not have much leverage over a newly emboldened Moscow, might mean that Bout is quietly released to Russia, as a concession. It may also be that given Bout’s fairly promiscuous business history, and the fact that in some instances he made shipments on behalf of the United States, in Iraq and elsewhere, mean that there are elements within the American government that would prefer he never has an opportunity to take the witness stand and testify about his exploits.
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