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'Merchant of Death' caught in Bangkok sting operation

Alleged notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, branded the "Merchant of Death" for feeding weapons to conflict zones around the world, was paraded in handcuffs by Thai police yesterday after his capture in a dramatic US sting operation.

The Russian, arrested in a US sting operation in Thailand, will stand trial in Bangkok before extradition is considered, police said yesterday.

Bout, arrested at a hotel hours after arriving in Bangkok from Moscow on Thursday, faced a charge of "seeking or gathering assets for terrorism," sought in an international warrant, Police Lieutenant General Adisorn Nonsee said.

Bout, charged in New York with conspiring to sell weapons worth millions of dollars to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, faces up to 10 years in jail if found guilty in Thailand.

The US plans to seek Bout's extradition, but Adisorn said that would have to wait until after he was tried in Thailand.

"Bout has to be tried in Thailand before extradition," Adisorn told a news conference.

Thai laws require detained foreign terror suspects to be tried in the country. Bout's Russian lawyer complained his arrest was "unacceptable."

"I contacted the general prosecutor's office yesterday and they do not have any documents from the United States," Viktor Burobin told a Moscow radio station. "This means a Russian citizen was arrested deceptively outside the home territory and that is not acceptable."

A senior official said Thai police would move as quickly as possible on the case as US authorities were already working on Bout's extradition with Thai prosecutors.

"It has to be quick since we don't want to keep this time bomb in our home for too long," Major-General Surapol Thuanthong told reporters.

Asked if Washington would want to extradite Bout before he finished any Thai sentence, Drug Enforcement Administration regional director Thomas Pasquarello told reporters: "The attorneys between the two nations will be working that out."

Bout, due to appear in court for a formal detention hearing today, had said nothing to investigators since his arrest, Surapol said, and kept his mouth shut at the news conference.

His only comment was on his arrest, when he told police "the game is over," Surapol said.

The mustachioed Russian's dealings are said to have inspired the Hollywood movie Lord of War, starring Nicolas Cage as a ruthless arms trader.

Over the years, he is said to have supplied arms to Afghanistan's hardline Taliban militia, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network, Marxist rebels in South America and former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor.

Bout, a former Soviet air force officer, aged 41, is said to be worth hundreds of millions and to have lived openly in the Moscow area. He is also said to have worked for the US military and the CIA in Iraq and Afghanistan -- while remaining one of the world's most notorious fugitives.
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