Viktor Bout & Thaksin in the Sky With Sirichoke?

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Suspected Russian weapons smuggler Viktor Bout, who is fighting against extradition to the U.S., said a Thai Parliamentarian asked him how to "intercept" the private jet of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra so the fugitive politician could be arrested.

Sirichoke Sopha, a close aide to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, admitted discreetly visiting Mr. Bout in a Bangkok prison in April, but said the Russian was now confused about details of their private discussion because of mistranslations.

Mr. Sirichoke said during their meeting he spoke in English, and Mr. Bout spoke in Russian, and a translation was provided by Mr. Bout's wife, Alla, who also attended.

"My meeting was not about faulting or framing Thaksin," Mr. Sirichoke said.

The scandal is the latest twist during the more than two years of court hearings and appeals in which the U.S. has tried to extradite Mr. Bout to New York for allegedly attempting to sell weapons to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents disguised as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.

The weapons, which never materialized, were allegedly to be used to kill Americans in Colombia, according to a U.S. indictment, which was later amended to include financial fraud, money laundering and other charges against Mr. Bout.

U.S. officials are currently waiting in Bangkok, hoping a Thai judge will finalize the extradition of Mr. Bout who was arrested in March 2008 during the DEA sting.

It was unclear what effect, if any, the scandal involving Mr. Sopha's meeting with the Russian will have on the Mr. Bout's attempt to block the U.S. extradition request.

An Appeals Court in Bangkok agreed on August 20 to the extradition, but additional legal problems arose which the U.S. hopes will be quickly resolved.

Mr. Sirichoke "showed me a photograph of an airplane, with registration N300B, model Challenger 609-CL, and said this is the private jet of Thaksin Shinawatra," Mr. Bout said in a Russian-language statement released by his wife on Friday (August 27).

"Sopha [Sirichoke] asked advice from me, how to intercept that airplane, and catch Thaksin. I responded that I am not going to give him advice like that, and he should talk about it with his American friends and allies, because the registration of the airplane comes from the American Civil Aviation Registry.

"Sopha told me that I, as a K.G.B. agent, must know how to catch the former prime minister. He also asked how many K.G.B. agents are in Bangkok, and what do they do here? I responded that have never had any connection with the K.G.B.," Mr. Bout said, referring to the former Soviet intelligence agency.

"I am not acquainted with Thaksin," who was overthrown in a 2006 military coup, he told Mr. Sirichoke.

Denying he asked about intercepting Mr. Thaksin's private jet, Mr. Sirichoke said he asked the Russian only about an Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane which landed in Bangkok on December 12, 2009 carrying 30 tons of weapons.

Investigators at the time said the weapons were being smuggled from North Korea to Europe or the Middle East, and the plane stopped in Bangkok merely for refueling.

"Mr. Sopha called me an 'expert' and suggested that I should give him information about the possibility that the airplane with weapons on board was paid for by Mr. Thaksin," Mr. Bout said.

The Thai Parliamentarian told the Russian that "Mr. Thaksin could have bought these weapons for the Red Shirts, and through his connections, organized a landing and unloading in Bangkok. I responded that I didn't know anything about that," Mr. Bout said.

The Red Shirts, a protest group which supports Mr. Thaksin, staged a nine-week insurrection by barricading main streets in Bangkok, but were crushed by the military in May after several skirmishes which left 91 people dead and more than 1,000 injured.

Mr. Bout also said that his alleged aliases, named in a 2008 indictment signed by DEA Special Agent Robert F. Zachariasiewicz and presented to the court in New York, mistakenly included the real names of two other people who were not him.

Viktor Bulakin and Vadim Markovich Aminov, cited among Mr. Bout's alleged aliases, "also worked in the sphere of air transportation at the same time as me, but I am not responsible for any of their actions," the jailed Russian said, denying all the U.S. charges against him.

"These two people will be hugely surprised if they learn that they are me."

Mr. Bout's legal problems "most probably started with his air cargo operations in Africa, where the interests of the U.S., Britain and France were mostly colluding and fighting each other," Mr. Bout's wife, Alla, said in a separate interview on Friday (August 27).

"In that market, a new air carrier turned up, a company owned by a Russian of all people, and that became a bigger thorn in the eye for all of the other three," she said, speaking in Russian.

Mr. Bout's air cargo business was perceived as "a threat in the African market for American, British and French air carriers, and that is how the whole set of problems for him started at that time," she said, denying that her husband committed any wrongdoing.

"In 1996 and 1997, he had a lot of visits from intelligence officers, from foreign countries, who asked him to give them information about the cargo he was carrying, and where he was carrying it to," she said, but Mr. Bout refused to name his customers.

Nicknamed the "Lord of War" and "Merchant of Death," the former Soviet air force officer allegedly sold or delivered weapons to rebels fighting wars in Africa, the Middle East and South America, including to Liberia's Charles Taylor, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Afghanistan's Taliban and others.

Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist who has reported news from Asia since 1978. He is co-author of "Hello My Big Big Honey!", a non-fiction book of investigative journalism. His web page is
http://www.asia-correspondent.110mb.com

(Copyright 2010 Richard S Ehrlich)

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