The Yorkshire Ranter has details of an intriguing story by Andrew Gilligan for the Evening Standard, which apparently hasn’t made it onto the web:
HOW CAN BRITAIN STILL USE THE MERCHANT OF DEATH?
Victor Bout [sic] is the most notorious arms trafficker in the world. Linked to Osama bin Laden by the British government, linked to the Taliban by the US government, he was described by a New Labour minister as a "merchant of death" who must be shut down.
Yet an Evening Standard investigation has found that, just two months ago, a Victor Bout company was hired by that very same British government to operate military flights from a key RAF base.
A brief search of the Civil Aviation Authority website turns up a document which backs up Gilligan’s story. There are some pictures of one of the aircraft mentioned here.
According to the US Treasury, Bout made $50 million from his arms deals with the Taliban, but that hasn’t stopped US contractors in Iraq from using his services.
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