ARMS AND THE MAN Is Viktor Bout a ‘Merchant of Death’, supplying weapons to terrorists, as the British and US governments claim, or an innocent victim of an international vendetta? The CIA certainly believes his scalp is worth $500 million but Bout’s friends tell Christopher Silvester a different story y now, a Russian citizen named Viktor Thai police and special forces worth a further $200 mil- Bout (pronounced Boot) may have lion. Nicknamed ‘the Merchant of Death’ after British been extradited from Thailand, where Foreign Office minister Peter Hain referred to him as he has been held since March 2008, to ‘Africa’s chief merchant of death’ in 2002, Bout has been the United States, a country he has in the sights of American agencies for over a decade, never visited before, for allegedly con- while his moves have been monitored by British intelli- spiring to smuggle arms to a group of gence for just as long. In 2002, an MI6 plan to arrest him Marxist guerrillas in Colombia, another country he has on arrival in Athens was thwarted when he was suppos- Bnever visited. ‘I think that if that happens none of Viktor’s edly tipped off at the last minute by the CIA. MI6 agents friends will ever see him again,’ says one of them, Moscow sent an encrypted message to Whitehall after his plane businessman Mikhail Belozersky. Fifty commandos will took off from Moldova, but the plane was then diverted guard Bout on the way to a Bangkok military airport, into mountainous terrain, vanishing from radar screens where a US government jet has been waiting on the for 90 minutes before it landed in Athens without Bout Tarmac since late August, when a Thai court granted his on board. As one European intelligence official has since extradition. The reason for the high-level security is that explained: ‘There were only two intelligence services Bout has been on an American wanted list for several that could have decrypted the British transmission in so years. Once extradited, he will face other charges and, if short a time: the Russians and the Americans.’ convicted, will most likely die in a US jail. A tall, portly man with a Stalin moustache, Bout, The Americans want him so badly that they have branded ‘one of the world’s most prolific arms traf- offered a $500 million package of assistance to the Thai fickers’, was the model for Yuri Orlov, an unscrupulous government, including Black Hawk helicopters worth arms trafficker played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 $296 million and technical assistance and training for Hollywood film Lord of War, while a Russian film, ALAMY. REUTERS. LAIF. GETTY IMAGES 2 4 ES MAGAZINE standard.co.uk/lifestyle Right: Viktor Bout in a cell at the Criminal Court in Bangkok in February 2010. Left: Taliban militia holding Stingers in Kandahar in 1999 at a time when Bout was said by the UN to be supplying them with weapons Left: Viktor Bout (left) in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2001. Right: a Colombian soldier demonstrates a weapon confiscated from FARC, 2002 Below: Viktor Bout’s wife Alla speaking at a press conference about her husband’s extradition in Moscow in September Le : Mikhail Belozersky. Right: Richard Chichakli with Viktor Bout in Moscow, 2007 Kandahar, was based on an incident in 1995 her divorce, the couple married and had a Bout became an international public enemy. when one of Bout’s planes was seized by the daughter Elizabeth, who is now a teenager It has been alleged that during the ‘second Taliban in Afghanistan. and lives in Spain, while Alla lives in Congo war’ (2000-2002) Bout supplied Moscow and frequently visits her husband in weapons to more than 20 armed groups ut what exactly is his value his Thai prison. from eight states involved in the confl ict. In to the Americans? Douglas When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, addition to all this, Bout has said that his Farah, a former reporter and Bout found himself stranded in Angola, mother wept when she read a newspaper security consultant who has where he decided to go into the aviation cargo report claiming he was a major in the KGB. written a book about Bout business, purchasing three Antonov An-12 A costly Belgian investigation of Bout for called Merchant of Death: aircraft for $120,000. His fl eet business in the alleged money laundering, as well as arms B Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes 1990s, operating through a complex network tra cking, launched in 2002, had initially War Possible, has speculated about what of companies in di erent countries, was resulted in an arrest warrant being issued by he could o er the US authorities in a plea based in Ostend, Belgium, and later in a Belgian judge. This expired under a bargain. ‘He could tell a great deal about the Sharjah, one of the Gulf states belonging to statute of limitation in 2007 after no Russian-led networks that continue to arm the United Arab Emirates, where his brother evidence was submitted to the court. jihadi movements in Somalia and Yemen. It Sergei joined as operations manager. From Yet despite this and despite Bout is likely he also knows how the Russian mili- the Sharjah hub his planes ferried frozen being under investigation in the US, tary intelligence and arms structure works, chickens and fresh vegetables to mining some of his companies still worked including its interests from Iran to Venezuela camps, gladioli from South Africa to Dubai, for the UK Ministry of Defence, fl ying and elsewhere. His knowledge base, although Ikea furniture into the armoured vehicles and he is only 43, goes back more than two countries of the Common- ‘IF YOU ARREST troops to Kosovo, and for the decades and possibly extends to the heart of wealth of Independent States Pentagon, supplying opera- Russian campaigns around the globe.’ (CIS), and the mineral coltan, EVERY TAXI tions in Iraq and transporting ‘Usually you’d expect these kinds of a component in electronic DRIVER WHO personnel to Afghanistan. activities to a ect the person, both outwardly technology, from the Congo GAVE A RIDE TO ‘If you arrest every taxi and inwardly,’ Belozersky told an interviewer to East Africa. At the same driver who gave a ride to for the global TV network Russia Today in time, so UN investigators and SOME BAD some bad person, there 2008. ‘I would think a person who brings Western intelligence agencies PERSON, THERE won’t be any taxi drivers left death to people should look somewhat allege, his planes carried WON’T BE ANY in the streets,’ Bout told the di erent from ordinary people. However, weapons from the CIS and Russian business newspaper there was nothing of the kind in Viktor.’ Eastern Europe to rebel TAXI DRIVERS Kommersant in 2008. ‘I am a Depending on which source one chooses to groups in sub-Saharan Africa LEFT IN THE shipper. I get an order, I get believe, Bout was born in 1967, in Tajikistan in contravention of UN sanc- STREETS’ paid. I send a request, get an (according to his USSR passport) or Turk- tions, sometimes in return for approval, instruct my crew, menistan (his own claim in a radio interview) payment in blood diamonds. VIKTOR BOUT the crew comes in, loads the or Uzbekistan (The Guardian), or Ukraine He supplied arms to the aircraft, gets the shipping (the House of Commons Foreign A airs legitimate government in Afghanistan papers, clears Customs. All these tales Committee). His father was an administrator and allegedly to that country’s Northern about illegal fl ights are not supported with and his mother worked in accounting. Bout Alliance of warlords and later to the Taliban anything. I am sorry, everyone in the transport went to Moscow, where he studied economics prior to 9/11. The Americans have made per- business ships weapons if it is not an illegal and trained as a military interpreter, learning sistent e orts to link his aircraft to al-Qaeda. cargo, if the papers meet all regulations… What to speak at least fi ve languages, after which In 2000, a UN report on sanctions busting sanctions did I break? Where’s the evidence? he served as a lieutenant in the Russian and arms smuggling in Africa named Bout as Nobody has presented any data.’ air force, partly in Mozambique. While in a gun runner, along with Richard Chichakli, Since I cannot speak with Bout, I contacted Angola, he met and fell in love with a married a Syrian-born naturalised US citizen, who his friend Chichakli, whom the US authorities Russian woman called Alla. He wooed her had been commercial director of the believe is the fi nancial mastermind of Bout’s COURTESY RICHARDwith CHICHAKLI. TASS PHOTO poems of his own composition. After Sharjah International Airport Free Zone. alleged arms tra cking empire. Chichakli was standard.co.uk/lifestyle ES MAGAZINE 2 7 working as an accountant in Texas had known Bout for a little over when the US government decided three years, runs a foundation to target him in an investigation providing aid to law enforcement of Bout in 2002. In 2005 he was and armed forces veterans living ‘designated’ by the Office of on meagre Russian state pensions. Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a He says that Bout participated subsidiary of the US Treasury, in its charitable activities. which meant that all his assets According to Belozersky, Bout in America were frozen and his had given up the air cargo property confiscated and sold.