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Viktor Bout Fate Now in the Hands of the Jury

By Jeralyn, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Tue Nov 01, 2011 at 10:32:16 PM EST
Tags: Viktor Bout, Richard Chichakli (all tags)
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The jury in the Viktor Bout case is deliberating (background here.) Here's a good summary of the closing arguments.

What happens if Bout is acquitted? The U.S. may have a backup plan. There's another pending indictment filed in February, 2010 pending against him and his former business associate Richard Chichakli in New York, for money laundering, wire fraud and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act ("IEEPA") by attempting to purchase two airplanes in the U.S. after the U.N. and OFAC imposed blocking sanctions. The Indictment is here. [More....]

Chichakli gives his version here. Interesting that the charges were brought after the Thai court had rejected extradition in August, 2009 on the FARC case and before it reversed itself in May, 2010.

Chichakli has a website dedicated to the denouncing the case with lots of documents, including a letter from Andrew Smulian's wife promising Andrew would protect him and Viktor Bout for the sum of $300,000. Smulian was arrested with Bout in Bangkok, immediately agreed to cooperate and was a chief witness against Bout in the current trial.

Here's the verdict form the jury will complete, which I got from the website of arms-trafficking investigator Kathi Lynn Austin, who's been tracking Bout for years and attending the trial, eagerly awaiting the jury's decision (hoping for a conviction.)

Since I don't approve of the means by which the DEA set up Viktor Bout, the amount of money expended on the informants, the investigation and the prosecution, the manufactured jurisdiction (w