Thailand Arms Dealer Cameroon Involvement

Thailand is starting hearings in the case of extradition to the United States of Russian citizen Viktor Bout who is suspected of arms smuggling, Lieut-Gen Phongphan Chayaphan, chief of the Thai police Crime Suppression Division, stated on Wednesday.

Hearings in this case will last about two months, the official specified. We are working on the legal procedures to extradite him to face trial in the United States as requested by America, so police and the attorney general decided to drop the related charges against him here,� Chayaphan noted.

Bout was detained in Thailand on March 6 under a warrant issued by a Thai court at the request of the United States. He is suspected of violating the UN embargo on the supply of weapons to zones of regional conflicts in Africa. The UN authorities in absentia brought charges against Bout of criminal conspiracy with the aim of supplying weapons ground-to-air� shoulder-fired air defence weapons - to militants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Bout was earlier transferred to a most guarded Thailand’s prison’s Klong Prem. He is under a 24-hour watch. Director General of Thailand Department of Corrections Wanchai Roujanavong, earlier said that aside from the video surveillance, other prisoners informers speaking English have the oversight of Bout. Suspects can be held up to 84 days in Thailand without being formally charged.

Bout’s lawyer Yan Dasgupta said earlier that US representatives were present during the detention of Viktor Bout in Thailand. According to the lawyer, They exerted pressure on him trying to persuade him to fly to America, he added. All this was made without drawing up of a protocol, which is violation of the law,� Dasgupta said stressing that Bout refused to fly to the United States and resisted� the pressure.

After that Thailand’s police denied that they were exerting pressure on Russian citizen Viktor Bout right after detention trying to make him fly to the United States. “It is impossible for the US to take him out of the country right after the arrest, because it is contrary to Thai laws,� stated spokesman for the criminal police department of Thailand Akarawut Limrat, the Bangkok Post newspaper reported in March.

I had three meetings with my defendant. Viktor Bout pleads non guilty and says his arrest is illegal,� Dasgupta said earlier.
Thailand has not brought official charges against Bout, but investigators suspect him of assisting terrorists.
Lawyers will do their utmost to change a measure of restraint and release Viktor Bout on bail. We take all necessary procedural actions and coordinate the work of local lawyers,� according to Dasgupta.
Some sources report that the US filed a request to the Thai Foreign Ministry on Viktor Boutâ extradition, but these facts have not been proved yet and no official procedure has been launched the lawyer said. However, there is a bilateral agreement on extradition between Bangkok and Washington.

There are too many questions in this case. We hope that local laws will be complied with in Thailand and the trial will be just, if takes place,� he said.
According to Thai lawyer Lak Nitiwatvichan who is engaged in Bout’s case he knows not a single case of violation of law by Bout and he hopes for impartiality of the Thai justice.
He (Viktor Bout) has done nothing wrong. Thailand is a sovereign country, so since he was arrested in Thailand, he is willing to be prosecuted under Thai law,� the lawyer said earlier.
Commenting on the situation with the possible extradition of Bout to the United States, Dasgupta noted that this “is impossible without completion of certain procedures.However, according to Thai laws, it is possible to simultaneously conduct the investigation and consider the extradition procedure.
Thailand™s court earlier refused to release Viktor Bout on 500,000 bahts (15,500 US dollars) bail. The court™s decision was prompted by apprehensions that the suspect may leave the country and disappear.
The Bangkok Post English-language daily quoted Bangkok police chief Lieutenant General Adisorn Nonsi as saying that Bout may face up to 10 years in prison or may be fined from 4,000 to 200,000 bahts (130-6,400 US dollars).
According to US secret services, Bout in the 1990s used his fleet of cargo aircraft, built back in the Soviet era, to smuggle combat vehicles and armaments to countries in Central and Western Africa.
In Moscow, Russia’s national bureau of Interpol said earlier it has received no messages concerning the arrest of former Soviet citizen Viktor Bout in Thailand.

 

Russia has never put him on a wanted list. Consequently, we have received no messages about his arrest� the Interpol office said.
At the same time Interpol officials said the man had been on the international wanted list at Belgium’s request since 2002 on the suspicion of arms smuggling, a source recalled.
Bout’s British associate, Andrew Smulian, was accused of similar charges on March 10 after he was arrested in New York.
US and UN officials say that Bout smuggled thousands upon thousands of semi-automatic rifles, grenade launchers, other weapons and ammunition to Armenia for Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and African conflicts in Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Republic of the Congo, Rowville, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland and Uganda.
Most weapons were smuggled into Africa came via Bulgaria, which Bout visited frequently between 1995 and 2000. From July 1997 to September 1998 Bout reportedly smuggled an estimated $14 million of weapons into Africa. In 2000 Bout also delivered helicopters, anti-aircraft guns and armoured vehicles to Liberia. Bout also established Air Cess in Miami, Florida, in 1997. The company operated until September 2001, when it was dissolved.
Bout has essentially done business with anyone irrespective of ideology, often contracted on both sides of a war. As well as some of the more controversial customers such as the Taliban or Charles G. Taylor, the UN and the US have also paid for his services.
His nicknames, namely the Embargo Buster� and Merchant of Death,� were coined by the former British Foreign Office minister, Peter Hain. Upon reading the 2003 UN report on Boutâ activities, Hain said: Bout is the leading merchant of death who is the principal conduit for planes and supply routes that take arms, including heavy military equipment, from east Europe, principally Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine, to Liberia and Angola. The UN has exposed Bout as the centre of a spider’s web of shady arms dealers, diamond brokers, and other operatives, sustaining the wars.
Thailand starting hearings on Russia arms dealer extradition to US