WASHINGTON — Alleged Russian arms merchant Viktor Bout was flown Tuesday from Bangkok to New York in a chartered U.S. plane, extradited in manacles despite a final outraged push by Russian diplomats to persuade Thailand to release him instead, current and former American officials said.
The extradition followed a bruising diplomatic tug-of-war between the U.S. and Russia that shows no sign of letting up and could jeopardize cooperation on arms control, nuclear weapons curbs and the war in Afghanistan.
A former Soviet military officer and air cargo executive nicknamed the “Merchant of Death” by critics, Bout (pronounced “boot”) had been accused of arming failed states and insurgents across the Third World since the 1990s, but he had never been arrested.
Thailand’s government ordered Bout, 43, placed in American custody Tuesday, 20 months after his March 2008 arrest in a sting operation led by U.S. narcotics agents. Since then, the businessman — estimated by the U.S. to be worth $6 billion — has been in a Thai jail.
In Moscow, Bout’s lawyer and brother voiced alarm that American officials would pressure him into incriminating himself or others. The attorney, Viktor Burobin, said the U.S. had already offered Bout better treatment in custody in exchange for his cooperation. And Sergei Bout, a key figure in his brother’s global air cargo empire, warned that the U.S. would “make some kind of injections to get whatever they want out of him.”
Bout faces U.S. charges related to his alleged gunrunning empire — a prosecution that American officials describe as a milestone in international efforts to cripple the flow of illicit weapons.
A U.S. law enforcement official said Bout landed at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, N.Y., on Tuesday night.
Bout has been accused of supplying weapons that fueled civil wars in South America, the Mideast and Africa, with such clients as Liberia’s Charles Taylor, Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy and Afghanistan’s Taliban government.
He was an inspiration for an arms-dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in 2005’s “Lord of War.”
