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Accused Russian arms trader blasts media coverage
By GRANT PECK,Associated Press Writer -
Saturday, August 28
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BANGKOK – Facing extradition from Thailand to the U.S. on arms trafficking-related charges, Russian businessman Viktor Bout accused the United States and international media of demonizing him as major weapons dealer without proof.
Last week, an appeals court in the Thai capital Bangkok ordered Bout's extradition within three months to the United States, where he faces criminal charges that could put him in prison for life.
"I am not guilty of the crimes I am accused of and I continue to believe that justice will prevail in my case," Bout said in a statement Friday read by his wife Alla at a news conference. He is in a high-security prison in a Bangkok suburb.
The 43-year-old Bout was arrested in 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. Bout has been referred to as "The Merchant of Death," and was an inspiration for the arms dealer played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film "Lord of War."
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, and helicopters and airplanes outfitted with grenade launchers and missiles.
A Thai court in August last year originally rejected Washington's request for Bout's extradition, but after the ruling was reversed last week the U.S. moved to get him out quickly, sending a special plane to stand by.
The U.S. filed additional charges in 2009 against Bout _ a step that is now slowing down his extradition. Bout cannot legally leave Thailand until he goes to court to hear the new charges of money-laundering and wire fraud, said Sirisak Tiyapan, director of the international division at the Office of the Attorney General.
Washington has sought to drop those charges, but they remain stuck in the Thai bureaucracy.
"We'll have to see what the court decides," Sirisak said Friday. "Now everybody is just touting their versions of the story, which are all perceptions. Everything will become clear once the process reaches the court."
Bout has been accused of supplying dictators and warlords with weapons used in civil wars in South America, the Middle East and Africa. He has repeatedly denied being an arms dealer, though he acknowledges the air transport company he once ran did carry legally authorized shipments of weapons.
"The U.S. is trying to create for me the image of an illegal billionaire and an illegal arms dealer," Bout said in his statement. "I have never traded in weapons, I have never sold weapons."
From 1993-2001, Bout said he owned a fully legal air transport business based in the United Arab Emirates, which he closed down when it became unprofitable.
"Many media organizations are disseminating information about me as the biggest arms dealer in the world," he said. "They do it without thinking of the fact that there is absolutely no proof of these allegations and that proof just doesn't exist."
He denied speculation that he was close to senior Russian officials and held important information they would not like to see released. "I don't possess any secrets of the Russian state or its leaders," he said.
Bout's wife also slammed the media coverage of her husband. "You all understand that this is called informational warfare," she told journalists.
Alla Bout said her husband "is a strong man and he is not going to yield to the pressure, he is not going to quit. He will fight on." She said she doubted he could get a fair trial in the United States, suggesting a U.S jury "will actually not be seeing my husband, but they will be seeing the person built synthetically by media reports over a decade of time."
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