Lawyer for Russian arms suspect held in Thailand says new US charges won’t lead to extradition

New attempt to extradite Russian arms suspect Bout

BANGKOK — New charges filed in the U.S. against suspected arms trafficker Viktor Bout are another misguided bid to have the Russian extradited from Thailand after a previous request was rejected, his lawyer said Thursday.

U.S. federal prosecutors in New York filed the charges Wednesday in their pursuit of Bout, a wealthy Russian businessman who has been at the center of a diplomatic tug of war between the U.S. and Russia since his arrest in the Thai capital in 2008.

Thailand’s attorney general’s office said it had yet to receive the new charges but if it was shown to be a new case it could lead to a fresh extradition hearing.

Bout’s attorney, Lak Nittiwattanawichan, said he had not been informed of the new charges, “but what I can say is that they (U.S. prosecutors) will keep trying to do impossible things. This case is not easy.”

Bout is a former Soviet air officer who was dubbed the “Merchant of Death” because of his 1990s-era notoriety for running a fleet of aging Soviet-era cargo planes to conflict-ridden hotspots in Africa. A high-ranking minister at Britain’s Foreign Office first used the nickname to single out Bout for his alleged role in trafficking arms to the continent.

The new indictment charges Bout and former business associate Richard Chichakli used a series of front companies to try to purchase two planes from U.S. companies in 2007, in violation of U.S. and United Nations sanctions aimed at stopping bloody fighting in Africa. At the time, U.S. officials intervened to block the sale.

Both men have insisted they are innocent.

The 43-year-old Bout was arrested in the Thai capital Bangkok in March 2008 after U.S. agents posed as arms buyers for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which Washington classifies as a terrorist organization.

After his arrest, Bout was indicted in the U.S. on terrorism charges for allegedly conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to FARC, including more than 700 surface-to-air missiles, thousands of guns, high-tech helicopters and airplanes outfitted with grenade launchers and missiles.

A Thai court last August rejected Washington’s request for Bout’s extradition, which Russia opposed, but an appeal is pending. Bout remains in a Bangkok prison.

Sirisak Tiyapan, the head of international affairs for the Thai attorney general’s office, said they had no official word yet on the new indictment, which would be sent through the Foreign Ministry. He said if the charges covered fresh ground they could start extradition proceedings again, though it would be a lengthy process.

Bout’s lawyer Lak scoffed at Washington’s tactics.

“They can think and say and do anything they want, but that doesn’t mean it will work out they way they want,” he said.

His latest appeal to have Bout freed on bail was rejected Tuesday, and he complained that holding his client so long was an injustice if his case is finally dropped.

Co-indictee Chichakli said he was not surprised that new charges were brought against Bout, but that he was surprised to be named as well.

“The allegations against me are unfounded and not true in their entirety,” he wrote in an statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. “This case is all about politics and it is my intention to fight these allegations in a court of law, as the place where facts rather than politics are presumed, to be justly and impartially tried.”

Chichakli, who lives in Moscow, said he believed the U.S. government “is now trying a new technique to silence me after the failure of the repeated immunity offers I rejected. I am being targeted because the evidence I placed in the public domain may have contributed to their case against Bout to fail.”

_____

Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett and Stephen Braun in Washington, and Jane Fugal in Bangkok contributed to this report.