US President Barack Obama on his Asia trip next month will press Thailand to extradite Viktor Bout, the alleged Russian arms dealer nicknamed the "Merchant of Death," a US official said Wednesday.
A Thai court in August refused to hand over Bout, whose colorful life is said to have inspired the Hollywood film "Lord of Death" and is accused of peddling weapons around the world, including to Al-Qaeda.
Kurt Campbell, the assistant US secretary of state for East Asia, said that US officials including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have raised the case in every meeting with Thailand.
"We are pressing it as hard as we possibly can," Campbell testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Obama heads next month on his first presidential visit to Asia. In Singapore, he will take part in an Asia-Pacific summit and meet leaders of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Thailand.
"I will certainly make sure that this issue is raised within the context of his trip to Southeast Asia," Campbell said.
Campbell was responding to a question by Republican Representative Ed Royce, who questioned whether the Obama administration made a strong enough case to ally Thailand to extradite Bout.
Royce called Bout a major danger, saying that he sold advanced weapons throughout Africa including to both sides in Angola's civil war.
"If he gets out, it's going to be bloody carnage somewhere in the world," Royce said.
Bout, a burly former Soviet air officer, was arrested in March 2008 at a five-star hotel in Bangkok where he allegedly was arranging to sell surface-to-air missiles to US agents posing as Colombian guerrillas.
A Bangkok court ruled that it did not have authority to extradite Bout because the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was not listed as a terrorist group in Thailand -- a decision praised by Moscow.
