Readers will know that Russian citizen Viktor Bout was arrested in a sting by U.S.
agents in Thailand in 2008. He was
extradited to the United States, tried, and convicted in November.
Bout protested loudly during the sentencing hearing, insisting that "the charges against him were a lie and that he was a legitimate businessman. His lawyer says he will appeal the sentence all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary". Russia's foreign ministry condemned the sentence, accusing the U.S. court of carrying out an obvious "political order". In sentencing Judge Shira Scheindlin said there was "no reason to believe" Bout would have committed the crimes had he not been lured by the undercover sting operation, and therefore did not impose a life sentence.
Let us hope he is not housed in the same US prison where they locked ailing Roxanna Brown. She was arrested in the US on allegations that she had - in Thailand - been giving opinions on artefacts which were later smuggled. She had been lured there to give a talk at the University of Washington, locked up but failed to receive medical treatment and died an agonising death in her cell, her cries ignored by jailers. The case which led to her horrific suffering went absolutely nowhere and is believed to have been dropped.
In general however US authorities do not seem particularly concerned to bring international culture criminals to justice, still less facilitate the investigation of their foreign counterparts. The Roxanna Brown case was just one of very few attempts were made to get suspects from involvement in international antiquities trafficking into a US court in the same way as they have prosecuted arms trading cases and illicit trade in wildlife (the tarantula case).
Reading between the lines of reports at the time, it looks rather like US authorities were last year expecting a Gulf States antiquity dealer to come to the US where they were planning to arrest him, but the suspect got wind of their plans (possibly via Egyptian sources ???) and cancelled the trip, precipitating hasty arrests of the other suspects before (one version of events suggests) the measures were in place to simultaneously apprehend a number of other people (including it may be the case some in the UK). If that is so, these plans came to nothing.
Let us see the US extraditing, for example, from a bit nearer to home, a few dealers in Pre-Columbian artefacts to give out the message that culture crime will not be tolerated. Unless of course the US public and their government are content to continue to tolerate it going on under their very noses.
Carolyn Weaver, 'Russian Arms Trafficker Viktor Bout Gets 25 Years in US Prison', Voice of America April 05, 2012
VoA, 'Russia Denounces Bout Sentence', Voice of America, April 06, 2012
A federal judge in New York Thursday sentenced Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout to 25 years in prison for conspiring to sell weapons to a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group based in Colombia [...] Bout was arrested in a U.S. sting operation in 2008 [... when] he traveled to Thailand to meet with DEA confidential informants posing as FARC rebels who had offered to pay him millions for arms [...] the trial did not address Bout's past dealing arms in conflict regions in Africa -- or his air cargo contracts with the U.S. government during the Iraq war, even after United Nations sanctions against him in 2004 [... the court was accused of] hiding previous U.S. government collusion with Viktor Bout
Bout protested loudly during the sentencing hearing, insisting that "the charges against him were a lie and that he was a legitimate businessman. His lawyer says he will appeal the sentence all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary". Russia's foreign ministry condemned the sentence, accusing the U.S. court of carrying out an obvious "political order". In sentencing Judge Shira Scheindlin said there was "no reason to believe" Bout would have committed the crimes had he not been lured by the undercover sting operation, and therefore did not impose a life sentence.
Let us hope he is not housed in the same US prison where they locked ailing Roxanna Brown. She was arrested in the US on allegations that she had - in Thailand - been giving opinions on artefacts which were later smuggled. She had been lured there to give a talk at the University of Washington, locked up but failed to receive medical treatment and died an agonising death in her cell, her cries ignored by jailers. The case which led to her horrific suffering went absolutely nowhere and is believed to have been dropped.
In general however US authorities do not seem particularly concerned to bring international culture criminals to justice, still less facilitate the investigation of their foreign counterparts. The Roxanna Brown case was just one of very few attempts were made to get suspects from involvement in international antiquities trafficking into a US court in the same way as they have prosecuted arms trading cases and illicit trade in wildlife (the tarantula case).
Reading between the lines of reports at the time, it looks rather like US authorities were last year expecting a Gulf States antiquity dealer to come to the US where they were planning to arrest him, but the suspect got wind of their plans (possibly via Egyptian sources ???) and cancelled the trip, precipitating hasty arrests of the other suspects before (one version of events suggests) the measures were in place to simultaneously apprehend a number of other people (including it may be the case some in the UK). If that is so, these plans came to nothing.
Let us see the US extraditing, for example, from a bit nearer to home, a few dealers in Pre-Columbian artefacts to give out the message that culture crime will not be tolerated. Unless of course the US public and their government are content to continue to tolerate it going on under their very noses.
Carolyn Weaver, 'Russian Arms Trafficker Viktor Bout Gets 25 Years in US Prison', Voice of America April 05, 2012
VoA, 'Russia Denounces Bout Sentence', Voice of America, April 06, 2012
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