Extradite Viktor Bout? Russia counters US pressure.

MOSCOW – Alleged Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout has been framed by his American 'military-industrial' competitors and should not be extradited to the United States, some of his countrymen say.

But the US has reiterated its call for him to face charges over allegations that he tried to sell an arsenal of Soviet-made weaponry to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. Colombia has joined the Obama administration in urging Bout's extradition.

"Just because the cold war is over doesn't mean the competition between military-industrial interests has ended," says Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin deputy of the Russian State Duma. "It's not about ideology, but it is about competing interests. Russia extends official support to Bout because he's a citizen, and because the Russian public doesn't see him as any kind of criminal," he says. "They expect him to be supported."

Russia's Foreign Ministry has assisted Mr. Bout and his family, but has had little to say about the case against him, other than to describe the US charges as "unproven."

Mr. Bout, handed lurid nicknames like "Merchant of Death" and "Lord of War" by Western commentators, was arrested in Bangkok in March 2008 after apparently falling for an elaborate sting operation in which agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration posed as representatives of FARC, which is listed as a terrorist group by the US Department of Justice.

Bout, a former Soviet Army translator, is widely suspected of being a key player in the shadowy arms-smuggling conduits through which corrupt Russian officials and military officers sold off Soviet-era arms stockpiles during the 1990s to warring parties in Africa, the former Yugoslavia, and Asia.

On his own official English-language website, Bout is described as an honest businessman – never an arms dealer – who has been victimized by "fictitious tales and stories" peddled by his rivals.

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