How To Get To Imprisoned Merchant

CNN —

Brittney Griner's freedom ultimately hinged on the release of a convicted Russian artillery dealer whose life story inspired a Hollywood movie.

The Us basketball game star was released on Th from Russian detention in a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, nicknamed the "Merchant of Decease" by his accusers.

Viktor Bout, a onetime Soviet military machine officeholder, is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United states of america on charges of conspiring to kill Americans, acquire and export anti-aircraft missiles, and provide fabric back up to a terrorist organization. Bout has maintained he is innocent.

The Kremlin has repeatedly called for Tour's release, slamming his sentencing in 2012 every bit "groundless and biased."

Russia's foreign ministry said Thursday that Bout was returned to Russian federation after the exchange at Abu Dhabi Airport. Footage shared by Russian state television later showed Tour walking on a tarmac in Abu Dhabi, then boarding and sitting downwardly within a airplane, which afterwards landed in Moscow.

"For a long time, the Russian Federation has been negotiating with the United States on the release of V. A. Tour," the ministry said in a statement. "Washington categorically refused dialogue on the inclusion of the Russian [citizen] in the exchange scheme. All the same, the Russian Federation continued to actively work to rescue our compatriot."

It added that as a consequence of Russia'south negotiations with the U.s., Tour had been "returned to his homeland."

Tour's The states lawyer, Steve Zissou, said that Bout was with his married woman and daughter. "We are grateful that after fifteen long years, Viktor has finally been reunited with his family unit," he added.

Griner – who had for years played in the off-season for a Russian women'south basketball squad – was arrested on drug smuggling charges at an airport in the Moscow region in Feb. Despite her testimony that she had inadvertently packed the cannabis oil found in her luggage, she was sentenced to nine years in prison in early on August and was moved to a penal colony in Mordovia in mid-Nov after losing her entreatment.

The swap, which US President Joe Biden confirmed on Thursday, did not include some other American that the State Department has declared wrongfully detained, Paul Whelan. Whelan was arrested on declared espionage charges in 2018 and sentenced to 16-years in prison in a trial that U.s. officials have chosen unfair.

Griner and Whelan's families had urged the White Business firm to secure their release, including via prisoner exchange if necessary.

At the center of their bid was Bout, a human being who eluded international arrest warrants and asset freezes for years.

On the same day, Griner testified in Russian courtroom as part of her ongoing trial on drug charges following her February abort at a Moscow airport. Whelan was arrested on declared espionage charges in 2018 and sentenced to xvi-years in prison in a trial that U.s.a. officials have chosen unfair.

The Russian businessman, who speaks vi languages, was arrested in a sting operation in 2008 led past Us drug enforcement agents in Thailand posing as the Revolutionary Armed services of Colombia, known by the acronym FARC. He was somewhen extradited to the Us in 2010 after a protracted court proceeding.

"Viktor Bout has been international artillery trafficking enemy number i for many years, arming some of the most violent conflicts effectually the globe," said Preet Bharara, the United states attorney in Manhattan when Bout was sentenced in New York in 2012.

"He was finally brought to justice in an American court for agreeing to provide a staggering number of military-class weapons to an avowed terrorist organization committed to killing Americans."

The trial honed in on Tour's office in supplying weapons to FARC, a guerrilla group that waged an insurgency in Colombia until 2016. The US said the weapons were intended to kill US citizens.

But Bout'southward history in the arms trade extended much further afield. He has been accused of assembling a armada of cargo planes to traffic armed forces-grade weapons to conflict zones around the globe since the 1990s, fueling encarmine conflicts from Republic of liberia to Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. Allegations of trafficking activities in Liberia prompted The states government to freeze his American assets in 2004 and blocked any US transactions.

Bout has repeatedly maintained that he operated legitimate businesses and acted as a mere logistics provider. He is believed to be in his 50s, with his historic period in dispute considering of different passports and documents.

"His early days are a mystery," Douglas Farah, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Centre who co-authored a book on Tour, told CNN in 2010.

Farah told Mother Jones mag in 2007 that according to his multiple passports, Bout was born in 1967 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the son of a bookkeeper and an auto mechanic. He said that Bout graduated from the Armed forces Institute on Foreign Languages, a well-known feeder school for Russian armed services intelligence.

"He was a Soviet officeholder, about likely a lieutenant, who just saw the opportunities presented by three factors that came with the collapse of the USSR and the country sponsorship that entailed: abandoned aircraft on the runways from Moscow to Kiev, no longer able to fly because of the lack of money for fuel or maintenance; huge stores of surplus weapons that were guarded by guards suddenly receiving little or no salary; and the booming need for those weapons from traditional Soviet clients and newly emerging armed groups from Africa to the Philippines," Farah told the magazine.

Bout has said that he worked as a military officeholder in Mozambique. Others have said it was really Angola, where Russia had a big military presence at the time, Farah told CNN. He first became known when the United Nations began investigating him in the early on-to-mid 1990s and the United States began to get involved.

Bout – who reportedly has used names including "Victor Anatoliyevich Bout," "Victor But," "Viktor Barrel," "Viktor Bulakin" and "Vadim Markovich Aminov" – is idea to take been the inspiration for the arms-dealer character played past Nicolas Cage in the 2005 movie "Lord of War."

In 2002, CNN's Jill Dougherty met with Bout in Moscow. She asked him about allegations against him – did he sell arms to the Taliban? To al Qaeda? Did he supply rebels in Africa and get paid in blood diamonds? – and he denied each claim.

"It's a false allegation and it's a lie," he said. "I've never touched diamonds in my life and I'm not a diamond guy and I don't want that business organisation."

"I'm not afraid," he told Dougherty. "I didn't practice anything in my life I should be afraid of."

CNN'south Uliana Pavlova contributed to this written report. Previous reporting past Ashley Hayes and CNN staff.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/americas/viktor-bout-profile-prisoner-swap-intl/index.html

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