Tony Gerbert and Maxim Pozdorovkin’s documentary about the arms dealer Viktor Bout would make an interesting double bill with Lord of War, a 2005 Nicolas Cage movie in which Cage plays the man Peter Hain described as The Merchant of Death. Watching the movie from his cell in a US maximum security prison where Bout is serving 25 years, however, the family man with a penchant for home movies, parties and travel, might not recognise himself.
Overweight from too many good dinners, with a mustache and pudgy face, Bout has always considered himself to be no more than a successful entrepreneur in the cargo freight and import-export businesses. Through a mix of interviews with Bout and his fashion-designer wife, Alla, DEA agents, journalists, Douglas Farah, author of the book, Merchant of Death; Bout’s home movies and news footage, the filmmakers leave us with an open verdict.
Viktor Bout was a product, and a beneficiary, of Yeltsin’s glasnost and perestroika, when Russians were scrambling for ways to make money with the collapse of the communist economy. He began selling food to the hungry population, and in 1993, set up an office in Brussels after leasing old Soviet cargo planes. When he began leasing out the planes with no questions asked about their contents, his profits soared.
Bout claims he just loved to travel and see the world, but his extensive home videos put him in some pretty inhospitable places where not even the most intrepid adventure holiday maker would venture. These destinations include an array of countries involved in tribal genocide, ethnic or religious rebellion and civil war, with a special fondness for Africa.
The beginning of the end for Bout was 9/11 when tightened security began to cut off the oxygen of his empire. The Emirates closed down his companies, while other countries turned him away at the border, afraid of being scrutinized by the USA by association. He returned to Moscow, claiming to be bankrupt, although he seems to have gotten by.
Then in 2008, the businessman with the Midas touch did something inexplicable: he walked into a trap against the advice of family and friends, and was recorded offering to sell weapons to two DEA agents posing as Carlos and Ricardo – Columbian FARC militants. In the USA, FARC is an official terrorist group.
Despite a surprisingly insider view of Bout’s life, it is ironic that the trial, and particularly the judge’s verdict, are glossed over. It would have been helpful, for example, to have known the sentencing guidelines, and to have heard more from the Defense. Although Bout’s sentence of 25 years seems to confirm the success of the prosecution’s research, witnesses and arguments, what we hear from the judge suggests something quite different.
Bout argued that his forceful removal from Thailand for extradition to the USA was part of a ‘vindictive’ campaign against him. His rant at his sentencing was inevitably dismissed. But the sentence was passed on ‘intent’, not an actual sale, and the judge seemed to believe that Bout had indeed been entrapped in a sting operation.
The suggestion that there was no evidence that Bout had ever broken the law before this sting operation is indicative of how close he sailed to the wind and to what extent the arms trade is condoned by most of the G8 nations. From the little we hear of the judge’s verdict, it seems that 25 years was the minimum and not the maximum sentence the judge could impose for the charge of ‘conspiring to kill Americans.’ Alla is quoted as saying, ‘He won’t spend 25 years in jail; not even 20,’ but so far, all his appeals have been denied.
Joyce Glasser – MT film reviewer
