Victor Bout

[Magda Hassan]

PSO wannabe linked to arms dealer

Date January 11, 2013

Dan Oakes and Mark Russell

Twisted tale ...Richard Chichakli, right, is wanted in the US for dealings with arms warlord Viktor Bout, top left, who was played by actor Nicholas Cage, bottom left, in the Hollywood movie Lord of War.


EXCLUSIVE

AN INTERNATIONAL fugitive who worked with the world's most infamous arms trafficker has been arrested in Melbourne after applying to be a protective services officer.

The United States government is not about justice, it is all about domination and control.

Federal and state police swooped on Richard Chichakli in Melbourne on Thursday after the US requested his extradition on charges linked to arms shipments to notorious African war criminal Charles Taylor.
Viktor Bout. Photo: Reuters

Victoria Police confirmed 53-year-old Chichakli was caught by the PSO screening process. He had not been offered a job or started training.
US officials allege Chichakli helped Viktor Bout - known as the ''merchant of death'' and portrayed in fictional form by Nicolas Cage in the movie Lord of War - illegally buy planes in the US.
In February 2010, the US announced that Bout and Chichakli were wanted for money laundering, wire fraud and conspiracy over their alleged links to former Liberian dictator Taylor, who was sentenced last year to 50 years' jail for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Nicolas Cage in Lord of War.

Chichakli, a US citizen, has been on the run since April 2005, when agents from the FBI and the Treasury Department raided his home near Dallas, Texas. It was rumoured he went first to Syria and then Moscow.
Under American law, it is illegal for associates of Taylor to do business in the US. Bout, allegedly with the help of Chichakli, spent years selling arms to Taylor, fuelling the horrific wars in west Africa in recent decades.
To get around the US laws, which mirrored United Nations sanctions, Bout and allegedly Chichakli set up an airline, installed other people as office-holders and tried to buy two planes using front companies.
Richard Chichakli in court.

When the US government realised the front companies were controlled by Bout, it blocked the transfer of money to the companies selling the planes.
Bout was arrested in Thailand in 2008 and extradited in 2010 to the US to stand trial on terrorism charges, after being accused of intending to smuggle arms to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to use against US forces.
He was sentenced last April to 25 years' jail on charges of conspiracy to kill Americans, to sell anti-aircraft missiles, and to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation.
Bout was a translator in the Soviet armed forces before the fall of the Iron Curtain, and is believed to have built up his business using military planes left on airfields of the collapsing Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
It has been claimed that over the next two decades he sold arms to warring parties in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Libya, Angola, Kenya and Lebanon.
He was accused of, but denied, selling arms to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and claimed he was contracted at one point to transport UN personnel.
On his personal website, Chichakli claims he met Bout in 1995 in the United Arab Emirates, where Chichakli worked as commercial manager of Sharjah airport's free-trade zone, and Bout wanted to set up an airline.
After his contract finished, the accountant moved back to the US and set up a management consultancy. He says Bout, who by that time had moved to South Africa, contacted him in 1998 and asked him to assess whether an airline Bout owned could be publicly floated.
He says the last time he had any business dealings with Bout was in 2000, when he tried to help the arms dealer set up a manufacturing business in the US. Bout's visa application was rejected by the US government.
But Chichakli does admit he remained friends with Bout, saying he is proud of the fact he did not abandon him in the wake of a damning 2000 UN report that first raised allegations of arms trafficking.
In a 2003 New Yorker magazine profile of Bout, Chichakli referred to him as his ''friend and brother''. In the same interview, he claimed to be the nephew of the former president of Syria and the son of a former Syrian under-secretary of defence. He also said he served in the US Army.
''The United States government is not about justice, it is all about domination and control. The US government, despite its grave mistakes throughout time, never ever admit being wrong, nor once acknowledge making a mistake,'' Chichakli told a blogger in 2011 via email.
''It is crazy to even think that Victor Bout could stand a chance of justice in the US. Can you imagine the possibility of Victor not getting convicted? It is the Iraq weapon of Mass destruction, the Democracy in Bahrain, Saudi, and Yemen, winning war in Afghanistan and Somalia, and the justice of Guantamo [sic] … and people thought Obama will bring change!"
Dressed in a light green polo shirt and brown pants, Chichakli said nothing during his brief appearance at Melbourne Magistrates Court. Defence lawyer Andrew Sim said his client wanted to be known as Jehad Almustafa, not Chichakli, and was not applying for bail.
Chichakli was remanded until next Thursday after a US government lawyer said she was finalising extradition proceedings.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/pso-wanna...2cj3t.html