MOSCOW, April 12 - RAPSI. Russian businessman and alleged arms dealer Viktor Bout has asked State Duma deputies to sue the United States and Thailand in the international court during a video conference on Thursday.
Bout was earlier convicted to 25 years in prison in the United States.
Bout said he wants the deputies to form a commission to “clear up the situation and to establish the facts and the truth about the ‘mythical $6 billion,’” The U.S. Treasury Department claimed to seize these funds, Bout said, “and is now trying to confiscate 15 million under judicial procedure.”
Bout also called on scrutinized reports written by “pseudo-experts” at the United Nations for the UN Security Council as of 2000, “which were based on unverified evidence, rumors and lies.”
Meanwhile, his wife Alla said he had sent four letters to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about taking the case to the international court.
A federal district court in New York sentenced Bout to 25 years in prison for attempting to sell arms to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia. Bout has dubbed the trial an “inquisition” and stated that he had no hope that the sentence would be reversed or mitigated.
The court has also ordered Bout to pay the United States $400 in duties and $15 million for confiscated property for his alleged illegal arms sales. His defense attorney Albert Dayan said he would continue to seek his client’s full acquittal.