Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout wished Griner good luck at prisoner swop
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Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout and US basketball star Brittney Griner are seen on their flights home, as part of a US-Russia prisoner swop.
PHOTOS: AFP
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MOSCOW - Viktor Bout, the arms dealer freed in a prisoner swop for US basketball star Brittney Griner, said he wished her good luck on the tarmac in Abu Dhabi where they were exchanged last week.
Bout, who spent 14 years in US jail for arms trafficking, money laundering and conspiring to kill Americans,
Russia’s FSB security service released images of the two being led past each other on the tarmac at the airport in Abu Dhabi during the swop, although the video cuts away as they pass and there was no footage showing them interacting.
“I wished her luck, she even sort of reached out her hand to me,” Bout said on Saturday, in an interview with Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT.
“Again, it’s our tradition. You should wish everyone good fortune and happiness,” he said, adding that he believed Griner “was positively inclined” towards him.
Speaking to Maria Butina, who herself spent 14 months in US prison for acting as an unregistered Russian agent and is now a lawmaker and RT presenter, Bout praised President Vladimir Putin, whose portrait he said he had hung on his cell wall.
Asked about Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine,
“If I had the chance and the required skills, I’d join up as a volunteer,” he said. REUTERS
Griner has not yet spoken publicly. Her wife, Cherelle Griner, said on Thursday their family was now “whole,” and the couple would work to help secure the release of other Americans held abroad, including former US Marine Paul Whelan, jailed in Russia on spying charges he denies.
