The "Lord of War" Viktor Bout, arrested in Thailand because of his deal to supply weapons to Colombian terrorists, has links to the top leadership of the Kremlin, which provides him support of Russian authorities.
Moreover, his relations with senior Russian officials mean that he knows many secrets, the disclosure of which is not desirable for Russia, the US magazine Newsweek writes.
As journalists found out in the 1980s, the Portuguese-speaking Bout served in Mozambique together with a KGB officer Igor Sechin who is now a deputy prime minister in Putin's Russia. As the Nesweek notes, Sechin is the most powerful man in the Russian government after prime minister Putin.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Bout quickly filled the vacuum, supplying Russian weaponry and using old Soviet transport planes for it. According to a senior expert in the Washington Center for International Strategy Douglas Farah, who in 2007 published a book about Bout entitled "Lord of War", the Russian terrorist was engaged for 20 years in illegal arms supply under the control of the Kremlin and with its consent.
In addition, Bout, as told in the book by Douglas Farah, has perfectly passed into the Putin's system: he was a part of the rapidly expanding Russian military network.
Bout was spotted in Iran in 2005 and Lebanon in 2006. Supposedly, he delivered Russian weapons to these countries which were later used by the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah in the war with "Israel" in summer 2006, says an American expert. At the same time, his planes flew to Iraq.
The "Lord of War" was arrested in Bangkok in 2008. According to the prosecution, he was trying to sell weapons to members of the Colombian terrorist group FARC. As it turned out, his contact persons happened to be members of the US Agency for the Control of Drug Enforcement.
Now the "merchant of death" is threatened with extradition to the US, because FARC is considered a terrorist organization in the United States.
It is worth to be noted that, according to one version, it was not just an ordinary deal for Bout. It has been suggested that it involved Russian officials. According to some analysts, by supplying arms to Colombian rebels via Bout, someone in the Kremlin wanted to take revenge on Americans for their delivery of Stingers to Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980's.
No direct evidence of such links exists, but there are indirect ones. Thus, one of the cargo planes, associated with business activities of Bout, was arrested in Bangkok last year. There were weapons inside, and after checking the aircraft, it was found out that the plane was registered at a Moscow's address, which is also used by many companies that are connected with the FSB.
Anthony Davis, a security analyst with IHS Jane's, believes that the US authorities want to get Bout, and are doing everything possible to accelerate his extradition in order to receive information from him about spreading of Soviet and Russian anti-aircraft missile complexes Igla on the black market.
However, in his opinion, the fear of the Russian side is a bit exaggerated, as Bout's wife and children are in Russia, so he is likely to remain silent, as he did during his detention in Thailand. As Western journalists wrote about him before, "he rather prefers to remain a Russia's hero in the American prison than a defector who reveals secrets of illegal arms business of the Russia Federation".
It is to be reminded that Victor Bout is now preparing for extradition to the United States. New charges against him were recently dropped, which could accelerate the process of his deportation. In the US, the first hearing on his case has been already scheduled for early October. The Russian side called the consent of Thailand to extradite him "illegal and politically motivated".
Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center
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