Bout - a walking compromise on Russia and its leaders

The Russian intelligence service officer and arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is due to make a second appearance in a New York court today, had close relations with officials in the Kremlin, according to a well-placed source in Moscow, BBC News reports. "He had very close relations with some people in the president's office in both Yeltsin's and Putin's time," said the source, who previously "held a senior government position himself". Bout, whom US accused of selling arms to the terrorist organization The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), in Somalia, was arrested three years ago in the Thai capital, Bangkok, in a sting operation by agents from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.
 
"There are also potentially allegations he was negotiating with Hezbollah to bring in missiles for them, and there is much talk within intelligence circles that Israel was so concerned it tried to take Viktor out several years ago." The UN had imposed sanctions and a travel ban on him accusing him of breaking embargoes on supplying weapons to rebels in Angola and to Charles Taylor's government in Liberia. In 2002 the Belgian government issued an international warrant for his arrest. Despite this, Bout was able to live freely in Russia, according to the former government official in Moscow, who wished to remain anonymous. "Everyone from our police and special services knew where he was in the capital," the former official says.
 
For his part, Douglas Farah, author of a book about Bout, said: When he was working in Iran in 2005 and when he appears in Beirut in 2006 with the Hezbollah-Israel war - when Russia was supplying a great deal of weapons through Iran, which ended up in Hezbollah hands - at that point he was very useful to them and he was working on behalf of the Russian state. The big question now hanging over the trial in New York is whether much more will be revealed than what Viktor Bout is alleged to have said during the sting operation in Bangkok. For Russia it could be extremely embarrassing. But it could be equally embarrassing for the United States and other Western countries, which are also alleged to have taken advantage of Bout's services to fight their wars in different parts of the world, BBC News reports. It is to be recalled that his lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, previously said that "Bout possesses a treasure trove of compromising information on Russia". According to Amsterdam, Bout "is connected to Russia's shadow state and the most powerful elements of the power elite. He has tremendous information on how that shadow state works and on its dealings with Venezuela, Iran and across Asia.
 
In the beginning of January, Victor Bout reportedly had not accepted the deal proposed to him by the American authorities concerning the investigation. The offer contained a reduced prison sentence and permission for this family to reside in the US in exchange for information about his connections in Russia, through which he successfully engaged in his arms dealing. But Bout confirmed that he allegedly will not speak or give up anything about his bosses in the Kremlin. Currently Bout is in solitary confinement and he is searching for a new lawyer. If his is found guilty he faces 25 years to life in prison. The mass media reports that Bout's activities were chronicled in the book Merchant of Death which was then turned into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Nicolas Cage called Lord of War.