The saga of the “merchant of death” Viktor Bout has taken a stunning new turn.

Last week, a Thai appeals court reversed a lower court judgment and ordered the Russian citizen extradited to the United States. This was clearly in response to heavy pressure placed by the American government on the shoulders of Abhisit’s administration, which is desperate to avoid further international condemnation. Apparently, the United States went so far as to summon the Thai Ambassador to the State Department and read him the riot act, while a group of Congressmen wrote a letter raising questions about Thailand’s “Major Non-NATO Ally” status.

In the midst of a “reset” in US-Russia relations, Bout is connected to one of the most ruthless clans that dominate the Kremlin’s political landscape (see the main blog for more on this clan). It is believed by many that Bout was part of a deal engineered by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to provide support to the FARC rebels in Colombia.  The series of arms and energy deals concluded by the two nations in recent years cemented, on the one hand, Chavez’s commitment to Russia’s policy of energy market disruption and, on the other, reaffirmed Russia’s support for Chavez’s campaign to destabilize its neighbors in Latin America.

As an American aircraft sits on the tarmac at Don Muang International Airport, ready to whisk Bout out of the country, explosive allegations have surfaced about a deal that the Abhisit administration may have attempted to make with him in advance of the court’s decision. On August 24, well known Thai Rath columnist Nitipoom Nawarat – who speaks Russian and was appointed to the National Legislative Assembly in the wake of the 2006 coup – revealed that a representative of the Abhisit administration visited Bout in prison. The allegation is that Bout was offered a favorable judgment in the extradition case in exchange for fabricating accusations pointing to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s involvement in the illegal weapons trade. Shortly thereafter, UDD leader and Peua Thai Party MP Jatuporn Prompan raised the issue during a debate in the House of Representatives, accusing Sirichoke Sopha, a southern Democrat Party MP and aide to Abhisit Vejjajiva, of having made the offer. While denying the quid pro quo, Sirichoke admitted to having visited Bout.

Since the 2006 coup, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been subjected to a slew of criminal investigations. But despite the growing politicization of Thailand’s post-coup judicial system, the courts have come up with rather little to justify a measure as extreme as a military coup, much less bear out the comparisons his most rabid opponents (among them, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya) often draw with Hitler and Stalin. To date, Thaksin has been convicted of a single offense – not for corruption, as it is often said, but for signing a consent form endorsing his wife’s bid to purchase a piece of public land in Bangkok. The courts found that to have violated a constitutional provision on conflict of interest. In February 2010, the Supreme Court seized $1.4 billion of Thaksin’s frozen assets for alleged “policy corruption,” even though Thaksin’s companies – some of them unrivaled market leaders at the time he took office – had fared no better than the competition during his tenure. The Department of Special Investigations recently declined to prosecute Thaksin for the offenses that ostensibly motivated the seizure of his assets.

In the absence of any hard evidence of Thaksin’s supposed “evil,” the Abhisit administration has increasingly taken to the realm of fantasy to smear Thaksin. The Victor Bout scandal illustrates the lengths to which the Thai government is willing to go to persecute, in true Dreyfus-like fashion, its political opponents. Whereas the state massacres of April and May suggest that the Thai government has abdicated its responsibility to protect the life of its own citizens – and, in the process decided to make a mockery of its obligations under international law – offering Bout this incestuous deal demonstrates its willingness to sell out its closest ally over a shameful political campaign of slander, harassment, and persecution. These are not the actions of an ally, minor or major as the case may be – these are the actions of a group of desperate men, whom half of their own people despise, ready to sacrifice Thailand’s honor and national interest to tighten their weakening grip on political power.

With the entire world watching, the Thai government continues its systematic attempt to obfuscate, whitewash, and obstruct justice. As the government continues to cook up fraudulent judicial cases against the opposition, it still refuses to disclose any details about the autopsies performed on the ninety-one people who died in April and May 2010 – among them, Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi, whose murder the government has disgracefully sought to cover up. As usual, the regime is quick to brand its opponents “terrorists” and absolve itself of any responsibility, but very slow to disclose any evidence that in all likelihood shows otherwise.

While the government’s attempt to cover up the truth of what happened during the recent Bangkok massacres is as criminal as it is transparent, the Bout case offers yet more evidence of the political nature of the “terrorism” charges this government has leveled against the Red Shirts and former Prime Minister Thaksin. As Abhisit sinks into a deepening moral abyss, even the “merchant of death” appears to have found its intrigues too nefarious, or possibly just too stupid. Given the devastating information he might possess, one has to wonder about Bout’s personal safety, as he remains in the custody of the Thai authorities.

For a variety of reasons, we do not expect that Victor Bout will be sitting in an American prison anytime soon. However, we can only hope that the international community will use its leverage to send Bout on his way to the United States as well as to demand justice for those, both Thai and foreigner, who were injured or killed by the Abhisit administration during the recent massacres. The time for the international community to act is now, before the Thai government thoroughly whitewashes its own crimes, completes its criminalization of pro-democracy opposition leaders, and further disgraces Thailand by undermining its commitment to historical alliances. The world can no longer remain silent before the illegal conduct of this rogue regime.