ADRIAN MORGAN: WHY HAS EXTRADITION OF RUSSIAN TERROR FUNDER TO USA BEEN DELAYED?

Posted By on August 25th, 2010

Why Has Extradition of Russian Terror Funder to USA Been Delayed?

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.7163/pub_detail.asp

On Friday August 20, Douglas Farah wrote that the extradition of a notorious Russian terror funder, Viktor Bout, had been confirmed by a Thai court. Bout is wanted by America to stand trial on charges of conspiring to sell weapons to a terrorist organization, laundering of money and breaking sanctions.
On Friday his blog, Douglas Farah wrote:
Bout should be extradited in about a week, although the Russian government has already made clear it will do what it can to slow the process even further. There is, under Thai law, no further appeal allowed of this ruling.

Bout’s extradition request is based on an elaborate and successful operation by the DEA’s Special Operations Division, where informants posed as representatives of the FARC seeking to buy weapons to fight in Colombia, and specifically to kill Americans. Bout took the bait and arrived in Bangkok March 2008 with a laptop full of pictures of the toys he could deliver to them, including unmanned drones, RPGs and the promise of surface-to-air missiles.

With Stephen Braun, Douglas Farah had written a book on Viktor Bout, entitled “Merchant of Death,” published in 2007. An earlier collaboration by Farah and Braun, of the same name, appeared in the November/December 2006 edition of Foreign Policy. This 10-page article (pdf) can be downloaded from Douglas Farah’s website here.
Viktor Bout is a Russian national, born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan who had formerly been a military translator. He speaks Portuguese, English, French, Arabic. He has been suspected of supplying arms to Hezbollah and other groups, and Belgium has accused him of money laundering. He is said to be a close associate of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is now on trial for war crimes.
Since he was arrested at the Sofitel hotel in Bangkok Thailand, and officially detained on March 6, 2008, Viktor Bout has resided in Thailand’s Klong Prem prison in the capital. He has denied his guilt. Until Friday, Thai legal authorities seemed unwilling to acknowledge the legitimacy of the extradition claims. A website set up in Bout’s name contains pdf copies of several documents, including a complaint sheet, filed before Judge Theodore H. Katz in the Southern District of New York on February 27, 2008.
Count One states that between November 2007 and February 20008 Bout and a co-defendant named Andrew Smulian  will be arrested for Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to a Terrorist Organization (Title 18, United States Code, Section 2339A (b)) to FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionares de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo).  They had agreed to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to FARC “to use to protect their cocaine-trafficking business and to attack US business in Colombia, knowing that the FARC has engaged and engages in terrorist activity.”
A USDOJ press release from March 6, 2008, declaring Bout had been arrested in Thailand, stated that the weapons included  “surface-to-air missile systems (“SAMs”) and armor piercing rocket launchers. During a series of recorded telephone calls and emails, Bout and Smulian agreed to sell the weapons to two confidential sources working with the DEA (the “CSs”), who held themselves out as FARC representatives acquiring these weapons for the FARC for use in Colombia.”
“In addition, during a series of consensually recorded meetings in Romania, Smulian advised the CSs, among other things, that: (1) Bout had 100 SAMs available immediately; (2) Bout could also provide helicopters and armor piercing rocket launchers; (3) Bout could arrange to have a flight crew airdrop the weapons into Colombian territory using combat parachutes; and (4) Bout and Smulian would charge the CSs $5 million to transport the weapons. During one of the meetings with the CSs, Smulian provided one of the CSs with a digital memory stick that contained an article about Bout, and documents containing photographs and specifications for the SAMs and armor piercing rocket launchers that Smulian had previously said Bout could provide.
Andrew Smulian is British. He had been arrested in Thailand and days after his arrest he appeared in court in Manhattan on March 10, 2008.
Attempts to extradite Viktor Bout have been thwarted in Thailand’s courts, partly because FARC is not considered in Thailand to be a terrorist organization. In August 2009, a court over-ruled the extradition request and prosecutors had launched an appeal against the case. Lak Nitiwatanavichan, Bout’s lawyer, had been confident that the appeal would fail. Bout, taking to the Bangkok Post’s “Spectrum” magazine, said:
“These accusations made by the Americans are totally ridiculous and without foundation. In fact, it is very hard to do it [arms trafficking]. The missiles are not available, even from the Russian Army. This is crazy. It is someone’s imagination only.”
The same bravado can be found on Viktor Bout’s “official website”
In August 2009 during his Spectrum interview, Bout did express a certain pessimism. He said:
“If I lose the appeal and I am sent to America, maybe they will put me in Guantanamo prison. I am afraid of being extradited to the US and to end there. The Americans claim that they want to close it, but in reality it is still open…
… You bet I am. I am afraid that I will be killed. Maybe someone will poison the food or I will get hurt another way. Also, I am afraid that I won’t live too long if I am extradited to jail in the United States.”
He blamed his entrapment in a sting operation upon former friend, Andrew Smulian, whom he had known for twenty years. Bout said:
“’I am in jail because of Andrew Smulian. He was my friend and I don’t understand why he joined with the Americans against me and for what reason he set me up. Most probably it was for money.”
There has been much controversy about the background and circumstances of his extradition order. Yesterday, some news reports claimed that Bout was put on a plane, bound for the US. Soon, this account appeared to have been made prematurely. Russian propaganda site Voice of Russia stated:
But now Thailand has decided to open a new criminal case against Bout and thus to suspend extradition. The US attempted to withdraw the accusations but it was too late.
According to a Russian expert on international law, Naum Sonkin, this is an unprecedented case in history of law:
“To bring an accusation in a way that it is accepted for consideration by a Thai court and then withdraw it- from the legal point of view, this is nonsense. We’ve got used to the US habit of breaking norms of international law, though they speak so much about human rights and legality. But here we have a bright example of cooperation between politics and law.”
Bout’s wife Alla was saying that the US was ready to extradite Bout illegally. The Bangkok Post reported yesterday that a US jet had been sent to pick up Bout, and had been waiting at Don Mueang air force base since it arrived at 3 pm local time. In yesterday’s edition, which I saw last night, the Bangkok Post (a usually reliable source of accurate information) had claimed that the US had already “swooped” and that the jet had left Don Mueang air base, with Viktor Bout on board. The page has since been updated and now states that the extradition has caused a delay in proceedings to remove him to America.
The issue of hearing the second extradition order – to the same country where he is already approved for extradition – seems unusual. The United States had petitioned Thailand to officially drop its second extradition request. Hearing this supplemental extradition request in full is certainly a delaying tactic, even if it is technically correct.
The hearings over this supplemental extradition request are expected to delay the original extradition by about three months. There is almost certainly a “political” dimension to the delaying of Bout’s extradition. Thailand’s prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced that: “We are not sending Viktor Bout back today. There are still several legal steps to go through.”
Last night Philip J. Crowley, U.S. State Department spokesman, refused to be drawn on the issue, only saying that the extradition was “pending.” He said; “We look forward to seeing him in a U.S. court.”
Russia does not want Bout extradited. The Washington Post reported on Friday (August 20):
The Russian government fought against Bout’s extradition. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Friday’s ruling an “unlawful, political decision” made “under very strong external pressure,” the Reuters news agency reported, adding that Moscow would continue to seek Bout’s return to Russia.
Douglas Farah, a former Washington Post reporter and the author of a book about Bout, “Merchant of Death,” said his reporting indicated that Russia was concerned that Bout might cooperate with U.S. law enforcement and reveal Russian connections to shady regimes. Farah’s book reports that, among other ventures, Bout moved Russian-made weapons from Iran to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon in 2006.
If Bout does get to America, it is possible that he could furnish information on who is funding the illicit international arms supply, and it could be possible that Putin’s Russia could have dirt on its hands. There is no guarantee that Bout will talk. So far, he has maintained that he is just an innocent importer and reporter. He has done legitimate exports (even of gladioli flowers) but SAM missiles can come only from organized regimes and factories.
Forbes stated:
It is also widely believed that Bout would not have been able to set up his alleged illegal enterprise without at least a nod from the high-ranking Russian intelligence officials who are running the country at present…
…First and foremost, Bout has to reach American soil alive. The Russians could try to eliminate him despite Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s assurance of Russian assistance for Bout during his trial in New York. If the merchant of death is truly a valuable Kremlin asset, that august institution may not hesitate to rid itself of him rather than see Bout cooperate with U.S. authorities.
On his blog, after news came that the extradition order had been approved by the Thai appeals court, Douglas Farah had written: “Well, it is a day I had long predicted would never occur, but I have never been happier to be wrong.”
Unfortunately, the twists and turns that have happened since then have proved his initial intuitions. The extradition of Viktor Bout is not going to happen soon. Will it happen at all? The current government of Thailand is in a delicate position. The “Red Shirts” – supporters of exiled former leader Thaksin Shinawatra – threatened to hold the country to ransom in spring this year. It may be that Russia is making promises (or threats) that may influence how the situation progresses.
It was hoped that Bout’s extradition could somehow cast light on the true sponsors of international arms trading, the unpleasant underbelly of globalization.
For now, that hope will have to put “on hold.”
The Editor, Family Security Matters
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