Thai court grants \'Merchant of Death\' extradition

Viktor Bout, said to have inspired the Hollywood film "Lord of War" starring Nicolas Cage, has been fighting extradition since his March 2008 arrest in a Bangkok sting operation by US agents posing as Colombian rebels.

He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted in the United States on charges including conspiracy to kill US nationals and to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organisation.

His young daughter broke down in tears after a Bangkok appeals court delivered its ruling, which his wife, Alla, later said was "unfair" and made under political pressure from the United States.

"The court has decided to detain him for extradition to the US," judge Jitakorn Patanasiri said, overturning a 2009 decision by a lower court.

Moscow strongly criticised Friday\'s ruling.

"We regret what is in my opinion an unjust decision, a political decision that the appeals court in Thailand has taken," Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on a visit to Armenia.

In a thinly veiled reference to the United States, he added: "This decision, according to the information that we have, was taken under very strong pressure from the outside. This is sad.

"I assure you that we will continue to do everything necessary to obtain his return to the motherland."

Bout, a 43-year-old former Soviet air force pilot who is said to speak six languages and go by at least seven different aliases, refused to talk to journalists as he was led out of court in shackles.

The United States, which has described Bout as "one of the world\'s most prolific arms traffickers," had lobbied hard for his extradition, summoning the Thai ambassador this week to emphasise it was of "the highest priority."

Bout allegedly agreed to supply millions of dollars of weapons to undercover US agents in Thailand posing as rebels from Colombia\'s Marxist FARC group, which Washington considers a terrorist organisation.

US prosecutors allege he agreed to the sale with the understanding that the weapons were to be used to attack United States helicopters.

A US indictment accuses Bout of using a fleet of cargo planes to transport weapons and military equipment to parts of the world including Africa, South America and the Middle East.

It alleges that the arms he has sold or brokered have fuelled conflicts and supported regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan.

The United States has linked him to ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is currently on trial at a war crimes court in The Hague for his alleged role in the 1991-2001 Sierra Leone civil war, which killed 120,000 people.

Bout, who has been held at a maximum-security prison outside Bangkok, has denied the charges and says that he ran a legitimate air cargo business.

A Thai criminal court ruled in August last year that it did not have the authority to extradite Bout because FARC was not listed as a terrorist group in Thailand -- a decision praised by Moscow.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva insisted Friday that the new ruling was not influenced by politics and said the country aimed to maintain good relations with both the United States and Russia.

"We will explain the facts to both countries. This is not a political issue and Thailand is not taking sides," he told reporters.

In February this year, US prosecutors announced new money-laundering and fraud charges against Bout. The court will hold a hearing on October 4 related to those accusations, which Bout denies, his lawyer said.

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