Accused Viktor Bout aide Richard Chichakli has accepted extradition to the U.S. to face charges in New York for conspiring to buy American cargo planes to aid purported terrorists.
In a hearing Thursday in Melbourne, Chichakli told Australian court authorities he was willing to return to New York, where he is under indictment on conspiracy charges connected to the case against Bout. The Russian was convicted in 2011 for conspiring to kill American officials and smuggle arms to terrorists who turned out to be U.S. undercover informants working in a sting operation against him. Bout is now serving a 25-year term in a federal prison in Illinois.
“I thank Australia for its hospitality,” Chichakli said during the hearing. “I just need to go home.” Australian authorities said Chichakli, whose wife lives in the U.S., had been living in Melbourne since June 2010 with a female companion. Using a false Syrian passporrt identifying him as Jehad Almustafa, Chichakli applied for an Australian police job, even passing pychological and fitness tests before his fingerprints were linked to an Interpol red notice against him.
Holding U.S. and Syrian citizenship, Chichakli, 53, lived in several Mideast nations before coming to the U.S. and reportedly served briefly in the military. He set up an accounting business near Dallas, but federal officials accused him of acting as Bout’s chief financial manager.
The Treasury Department seized Chichakli’s assets in 2005, forcing his flight to Moscow, where he reconnected with Bout, who at the time was also under international travel and financial sanctions. Both men were targeted by the U.S. and the United Nations for arming and aiding the repressive Liberian regime of Charles Taylor, who was convicted last year of war crimes for his bloody incursions into Sierra Leone.
Chichakli faces charges of wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and six counts of wire fraud in connection with the aircraft purchases. Bout had long been known for supplementing his weapons deals with air transport logistics, including purchases, leases and sales — most notably his network’s clandestine sale of 12 cargo planes to the now-defunct Taliban government of Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
—AFP, “An alleged associate of notorious jailed international arms dealer Viktor Bout agreed on Thursday to be extradited to the United States, telling an Australian court he was ready to go home.”