Alleged Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is in custody in Thailand awaiting extradition to the United States, has asked Russian lawmakers to press their Thai colleagues to examine his case.
"I want to ask the Russian State Duma [the lower house of parliament] to appeal to the Thai parliament...to hear my case and all the circumstances of my arrest in Thailand," Bout said in a letter addressed to State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov.
"I am not guilty of the crimes the U.S. has accused me of," Bout said in the letter, which his wife Alla gave to journalists at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday.
"I have never participated in any illegal activity, either in the U.S., where I have never been, nor in any other country in the world," Bout continued.
Alla Bout was also expected to appeal to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday.
Bout, dubbed the Merchant of Death by world media, was arrested in March 2008 at the request of the United States. His extradition to the United States was ordered by the Thai appeals court on August 20 this year.
On February 17, the United States brought new charges against Bout, accusing him of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a U.S. federal law prohibiting the export of goods, technologies or services that pose an "unusual and extraordinary threat... to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States."
The charges were passed over to the Thai criminal court two hours before the appeals court reached its verdict on the 2008 accusations. In accordance with Thai law, Bout cannot be extradited to the United States until the second charges are brought to court.
The Thai Prosecutor General's Office received a formal request from the United States on August 31 to drop the second set of charges against Bout.
The Prosecutor General's Office has yet to consider the U.S. request.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the Thai court's decision to extradite Bout politically motivated, and suggested it was made to please Washington. He said Moscow would seek Bout's repatriation.
MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti)
