Viktor Bout

Notorious suspected arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as the Merchant of Death, is extradited to the US from Thailand.

In a further twist in the tale of the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, his extradition from Thailand to the US has been delayed. Asia Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh explains why the “merchant of death” is detained.

It was actually, really, quite a surprise. After all the wrangling, the endless conspiracy theories, and the melodrama, it seems like Viktor Bout – the man who’s been dubbed the world’s biggest arms dealer, the Merchant of Death – is going America to face trial. It’s been two and a half years since Viktor Bout…

BANGKOK, THAILAND – For an opening gambit, it didn’t suggest things would go that well. Viktor Bout had, at court, told me several times that the western media were untrustworthy and broadly despicable. Here, as I approached the visitor’s window in the remand centre where he’s been languishing for a year, he was set apart…

A piece in The Observer about my prison interview with the man nicknamed the “merchant of death”: Viktor Bout, the Russian accused of being the world’s biggest arms dealer, has angrily denied allegations that he supplied weapons to the Taliban and al-Qaida in his first interview for six years with the western media. Bout is…