MOSCOW. May 21 (Interfax) - Russian businessman Viktor Bout, sentenced to 25 years in the United States on charges of illegal arms trade, fears that if he is extradited to Russia at Moscow's request, this can be interpreted as the recognition of his guilt.
"You should know the American tricks. The [United] States will definitely insist that in its motion Russia would also recognize me as a criminal. And I don't want to return with the stigma of a criminal! This is a matter of principle for me. I want to return home with a clear conscience," he said in an interview published in Komsomolskaya Pravda on Saturday.
Earlier U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that the United States is ready to handle a possible Russian query for Bout's extradition.
Bout doubts the same will happen to him as to Edmond Pope, who was sentenced in Russia for spying for the benefit of the United States, pardoned and sent home, and the Russian court did not demand that the U.S. administration recognize him as a criminal.
"I know that in confidential talks with the U.S. authorities Russia hinted to such an option. But you should know Americans, they forget good things fast. The only thing that makes me happy is that the Kremlin and the government and the Foreign Ministry are concerned about me," he said.
The businessman thinks that the cancellation of the decision to transfer him to a jail in Colorado is the result of this concern.
On November 2, 2011, a jury in New York found Bout guilty on all four counts related to conspiring to sell a large cache of weapons, conspiring to kill American service members and officials, providing material support to a terrorist organization and conspiring to sell surface-to-air missiles.
The prosecutors demanded a life sentence for Bout. The Russian businessman's lawyer Albert Dayan described the case as politically motivated and asked the judge to overturn the guilty verdict and order Bout's release. The businessman himself pleaded not guilty.