Thai lawmakers are to talk to suspected arms dealer Viktor Bout over allegations that he supplied weapons to ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.The scandal unfolded when Sirichoke Sopha – an aide of the current prime minister – admitted that he visited Viktor Bout in prison in April this year.He wanted to hear from Bout that the former premier and exiled opposition leader Thaksin Shinawatra was involved in arms smuggling.The opposition was outraged and now a parliamentary commission wants to know the details of this conversation.“We decided at the Commission meeting last Wednesday that we should go and talk with Viktor Bout ourselves to clarify all matters,” Torpong Chainasan, Chairman of the International Affairs Commission of the Thai Parliament, claimed. “We need to hear the truth from Mr. Bout directly. Both government and opposition members are going to talk to him.”Last year a Georgian registered cargo plane arriving from North Korea landed in Bangkok to refuel. It was found packed with weapons.The government suspects that the exiled opposition leader paid to have those weapons smuggled to fuel the violent clashes that shook the country earlier this year.Although there was no real evidence, the plane was immediately linked to Viktor Bout. However, Bout, in his words, refused to “fantasize” on this issue.Last week his wife Alla read his statement at a press conference at the foreign correspondents’ club of Thailand.“I was asked if Shinawatra could have bought these weapons for the Red Shirts and through his connections arrange the safe landing and unloading of the weapons in Bangkok. I say I do not know anything about that and do not want to fantasize about it,” the statement said.Bout was arrested in Bangkok in 2008 and since then the US has sought his extradition.In America he is facing four terrorism-related charges and possible life imprisonment.In 2009, a Thai court rejected the initial US extradition request. Washington rushed to appeal and filed new charges.Yet in August this year, when a court reversed the ruling and decided to allow the extradition, the US rushed back to drop the new accusations.By then it was too late, the new charges will be heard as scheduled in October.With the political rivalry in the country raging, Viktor Bout may well find himself drawn into an inside game as a pawn.He may have already felt the consequences, with some saying that it was his refusal to blackmail Shinawatra that prompted the green light for his extradition to the US.
RT
