WASHINGTON — She is an American professional basketball star who has been accused of having hash oil in her luggage.
He is a notorious Russian arms dealer known as the “dealer of death” who is serving a 25-year federal sentence for conspiring to sell guns to people who said they wanted to kill Americans.
And the Kremlin appears interested in linking their fates in a possible deal with the Biden administration that would free both.
The large discrepancy between the cases of Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout underscores the extreme difficulties President Biden would face if he sought a prisoner swap to free Ms. Griner, the imprisoned WNBA player, from Moscow custody. The Biden administration, reluctant to provide incentives for the arrests or kidnappings of Americans abroad, would have a hard time justifying the release of a rogue figure like Mr. Bout.
At the same time, Mr. Biden is under pressure to release Ms. Griner, who was arrested at an airport near Moscow in February and ruled “wrongly detained” by the State Department in May. That reflects concerns that the Kremlin is considering its influence in the tense confrontation between the United States and Russia over Ukraine. Last week, dozens of groups representing people of color, women and LGBTQ Americans sent a letter urging Mr. Biden to “make a deal to bring Brittney home to America immediately and safely.”
The trial of Ms. Griner was scheduled to begin on Friday.
Mr Bout, 55, a former Soviet military officer who made a fortune in the global arms trade before becoming embroiled in a federal covert operation, could be the price of any deal. Russian officials have been pushing for Mr Bout’s case for years, and in recent weeks Russian media have directly linked his case to Ms Griner’s. Some, including state intelligence agency Tass, have even claimed talks are already underway with Washington over a possible swap, which US officials will not confirm.
Mr. Bout’s New York-based attorney, Steve Zissou, said in an interview that Russian officials are pushing for the release of Mr. Bout, who was convicted in 2011 of offering to sell weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, to federal agents who identified themselves as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Mr. Zissou said that he met with Anatoly I Antonov, the Ambassador of Russia to the United States, in Washington in June and that Mr. Antonov told him that Mr. Bout’s release was a very high priority for the Russian government .
“It has been made very clear to the American side that if they expect more prisoner exchanges, they must take Viktor Bout seriously,” Mr Zissou said. “I feel like no American is going home unless Viktor Bout is sent home with them.”
US officials have refused to back this notion and will not discuss a possible deal to release Ms. Griner. The State Department dismisses questions about prisoner swaps around the world on practical grounds and warns they set a dangerous precedent.
“Using wrongful detention as a bargaining chip poses a security threat to everyone traveling, working and living abroad,” Department spokesman Ned Price said recently.
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Mr Biden agreed to a prisoner swap in April that saw Russia free Trevor Reed, a former US Marine from Texas who has been held since 2019 for assaulting two police officers. In return, the US freed Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot who had been sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2011 for drug smuggling. But White House officials stressed that Mr. Reed’s poor health made his case exceptional.
Many people have expressed their support for Ms. Griner, a top athlete and basketball icon. Less obvious is the Russian government’s solidarity with an organized crime titan linked to terrorists and war criminals. In December, two dozen of Mr. Bout’s pencil sketches and other artwork made in his cell in a federal prison building near Marion, Illinois were on display at a government building in Moscow.
At the time of his arrest in 2008, Mr. Bout (pronounced “boot”) was so well known that an arms dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film Lord of War was based on his life.
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July 1, 2022 2:49 am ET
Born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, he attended a Russian military school and served as a Soviet air force officer.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Bout began making money by moving cargo between continents. US officials say he soon became one of the world’s top arms dealers, transporting weapons belonging to the former Soviet military in Ilyushin transport planes, with a particularly lucrative business in war-torn African countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone. Mr. Bout denies knowingly dealing in weapons.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the United States and European nations were certain that Mr. Bout’s arms shipments not only fueled death and misery, but also violated United Nations arms embargoes. They were particularly alarmed by intelligence that suggested he may have done business with the Afghan Taliban and even al-Qaeda, allegations he denies.
Finally, the United States lured Mr. Bout into a trap. In 2008, two Drug Enforcement Administration agents posing as members of Colombia’s left-wing rebel group FARC arranged to meet Mr. Bout in Bangkok to buy weapons, including 30,000 AK-47 rifles, plastic explosives and surface-to-air missiles to use against The Colombian government and American military personnel support their campaign against the FARC.
“Viktor Bout was willing to sell an arsenal of arms that some small countries would envy him for,” said Preet Bharara, then US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, after his sentencing. “He wanted to sell these guns to terrorists to kill Americans.”
The FARC’s official status as a foreign terrorist organization at the time meant that Mr. Bout received a mandatory federal minimum sentence of 25 years.
A former US official familiar with Mr. Bout’s situation said the Russian government’s interest in his freedom appears to be personal and that he has ties to powerful people close to President Vladimir V. Putin.
Another former US official pointed to a more principled reason: Mr. Bout was arrested in Thailand and extradited from there to New York. Russian officials have complained about what they call a growing “US practice of actually hunting down our citizens abroad and arresting them in other countries,” as Grigory Lukyantsev, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s human rights commissar, told the Russian in August RT news agency.
The first former US official said it was highly unlikely Mr Bout would be released given the scale of his crimes in a deal for Ms Griner – even if, as some have speculated, the deal had been Paul Whelan, a former US Marine since December Jailed in Moscow in 2018 on espionage charges. The former official said Russia had requested Mr Bout’s release in even more high-profile cases in the past and had been firmly denied.
Both former officers spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to publicly discuss their knowledge of Mr Bout’s case.
Danielle Gilbert, an assistant professor of military and strategic studies at the US Air Force Academy who specializes in hostage diplomacy, agreed that releasing Mr. Bout would be a difficult political proposition. But she didn’t rule out the idea. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they at least consider the possibility,” she said, noting that she doesn’t speak for the US government.
Mr. Bout has at least one advocate for his release in the United States: Shira A. Scheindlin, the judge who presided over his case. In an interview, Ms Scheindlin said that exchanging Mr Bout for Ms Griner would be inappropriate given the magnitude of his offense in relation to her alleged infraction.
But she said a deal that also included Mr Whelan could even tip the scales. Mr Bout has already served 11 years in prison, she noted, saying: “In my opinion he was not a terrorist. He was a businessman.” Though she had to serve his mandatory 25-year sentence, she added, “I felt it was too high at the time.”
“Having served for so long, I think the interest of the United States in punishing him has been satisfied,” she said, “and it wouldn’t be a bad equation to send him back if we get back these people who matter.” for us.”
Even if the United States were open to such a deal, Mr Zissou said it was not imminent. He said he believes Russia – which insists Ms Griner faces legitimate charges and is not a political pawn – is determined to complete her trial before her release is heard. “And that’s probably going to take a few more months,” he said.