President Joe Biden on Thursday traded Viktor Bout, the notorious international arms dealer known as the "Merchant of Death," to Russia for U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner, who was arrested at a Moscow airport earlier this year with cannabis oil in her luggage. Bout allegedly delivered surface-to-air missiles to Kenya for an attack on an Israeli airliner in 2002. And four years later, Bout reportedly met with Islamic terrorist organization Hezbollah prior to the Lebanon war. A U.S. jury sentenced Bout to 25 years in prison in Manhattan in 2011. Russia did not agree to include Whelan in the deal, according to the New York Times, leaving Biden to agree to a "one-for-one swap."

Source: Libya Today December 09, 2022 03:41 UTC