The Americans may finally get Viktor Bout. But what will he tell them?

A STREAM of foreigners trickles in, and usually out, of the fetid jails of Bangkok. Rarely is such a big fish seen as Viktor Bout, a former Russian military-intelligence officer turned arms trader, who faces an extradition hearing on October 4th that could send him to New York to stand trial.



Mr Bout’s business was extraordinary and his protectors a mystery. Now his future is the subject of a diplomatic spat. He was lured to Bangkok in 2008 in an American sting operation. Mr Bout insists that he is a legitimate businessman framed by Russia’s enemies. His loyal wife has insisted that he went to Thailand to take a cooking course. The foreign ministry in Moscow says that the extradition could bust the “reset” in Russian-American relations.



How much backing Mr Bout had from Russia, from whom, and when, is unclear. In general, says Simon Taylor of Global Witness, a campaigning group, it “beggars belief” to imagine that Russia’s security apparatus did not know what he was up to. Mr Bout’s old connections certainly helped him build a global empire in the 1990s, trading the surplus armouries of the Soviet empire for cash and minerals.



Critics say he stoked the fires of Africa’s bloodiest civil wars: a British government minister once dubbed him the “merchant of death”. He showed a remarkable ability to dodge UN sanctions and evade investigators. His exploits were loosely portrayed by Nicholas Cage in the film “Lord of War” (Mr Bout took a dim view of this).



America has been on Mr Bout’s case for years. Before the September 2001 terrorist attacks, American agents plotted to snatch him and hand him to the authorities in South Africa or Belgium to face criminal charges, according to the New York Times. But when Washington’s priorities changed, Mr Bout breathed more easily. His planes, some say, ran supplies to American troops in Iraq. How much of this is bravado, how much rumour and how much fact is hard to say. Mark Kramer, a Russia-watcher at Harvard University says that Mr Bout has deliberately fostered “mythology” about his actions.



A trial in America may not illuminate such shadows. Mr Bout may strike a deal with America’s spooks, or with prosecutors, perhaps to expose other countries’ dirty secrets, or to conceal America’s.



So far, even the extradition has proved surprisingly tricky. The Thai government has squirmed under arm-twisting by Russia and America, involving offers of weapon sales and cheap oil. A parliamentarian from the governing party tried to persuade Mr Bout to implicate an exiled former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, in his dealings. Judges have struggled with the political nature of the case. The first verdict in August 2009 went Mr Bout’s way, stunning American officials, who thought they had “home field advantage” in Thailand, says Paul Quaglia, a former CIA officer who is now a security consultant.



Even after the Department of Justice won an appeal on August 20th, Mr Bout has stayed put. His lawyers argued that the court must rule on two other charges filed against him at the behest of American prosecutors who feared a defeat on the conspiracy charge. Eager American officials had already sent a plane to Bangkok’s military airport to collect Mr Bout. After a few days on the tarmac it turned tail for Washington. Mr Bout was moved from a relatively lax remand prison to Bangkok’s more secure central jail. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said the appeal-court verdict was politically motivated.



Some think more legal chicanery may be in store. Mr Bout has slipped out of tight corners before. His cargo business ran on quicksilver changes of aircraft names, registration and ownership, usually one step ahead of investigators, says Alex Vines at Chatham House, a London-based think-tank, who served on UN panels dealing with sanctions in Africa.



Mr Bout’s latest troubles started in March 2008 when he flew to Bangkok to meet Drug Enforcement Administration officials disguised as representatives of Colombia’s FARC guerrillas. He was caught on tape allegedly offering to sell them hundreds of missiles that could shoot down American aircraft, plus other weapons. The indictment alleges that Mr Bout conspired “to kill Americans” and supply arms to a “terrorist organisation”.



Selling missiles to the FARC so they can shoot down American aircraft would seem attractive to hardliners in Russia, even if not to the present Russian government. It also chimes with Russia’s efforts to help Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, a foe of both America and Colombia.



Mr Bout may be past his prime. Some question his judgment in falling for America’s trickery; greed or boredom do not really explain why he took the bait. Others say that his cargo business thrived during anarchic wars of plunder that have, thankfully, subsided. That at least should be cause for celebration, not regret.



International