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"Merchant of Death" says he is innocent-Thai police
08 Mar 2008 05:57:32 GMT
 Source: Reuters
BANGKOK, March 8 (Reuters) - International arms dealer Viktor Bout, arrested in a U.S. sting operation in Thailand, has told police he was in Bangkok for a holiday and not to transact any weapons business, a police officer said on Saturday.

Bout, dubbed the "Merchant of Death" of the clandestine arms trade and picked up from a hotel on Thursday hours after arriving from Moscow, had denied a Thai charge of "seeking or gathering assets for terrorism," Colonel Kittisak Sukhawattanakul said.

"He said he came here as a tourist, but did not say where he planned to visit," Kittisak told Reuters.

Bout, a former Soviet Air force officer, was charged in New York with conspiring to sell weapons worth millions of dollars to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The United States, which has given billions of dollars in military aid to Colombia to fight the Marxist rebels and drug cartels, plans to seek Bout's extradition, but Thai police have said that would have to wait until after he was tried in Thailand.

Thai laws require detained foreign terror suspects to be tried in the country and on Saturday police sought permission from a court to detain Bout for further interviews.

Police planned to finish the investigation in two months before submitting it to prosecutors, said Kittisak, who led Bout to the court escorted by 10 heavily armed commandos.

Bout plans to apply for bail on Sunday, his Thai lawyer Lak Nitiwatvichan said. (Reporting by Noppawan Bunluesilp; Writing by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)


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