WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd November, 2019) The US State Department has not allowed the wife of Russian national Viktor Bout jailed in the United States to have additional meetings with him during her stay in the country, Alla Bout told Sputnik, adding that the US authorities had not issued any official answer for her request despite promises.
Alla Bout is currently in the United States. Under a standard meeting schedule, she is allowed to meet with her husband in jail on Saturdays and Sundays, just like other inmates' relatives. During the first four weeks of her stay in the United States, the State Department allowed the Bout family to have two additional meetings a week. After it, Alla Bout made a request to continue meetings under this schedule until the end of her stay in the country.
"We were not allowed anything and we were not given anything. We have not received any official answer so far. There were two or three requests. There were working meetings on this issue. And they made some promises but there has been no official paper," Alla Bout said in a phone conversation.
She said that they had four meetings left. Every time they meet, the Bouts spend three or four hours together inside a common room in a prison located near the city of Marion in the state of Illinois.
Alla Bout said it was hard to talk in such circumstances because they had to shout inside the noisy room and were not allowed to lean over to each other.
"The next Tuesday, we are leaving for New York. It is November 12. We are flying to Moscow on December 1," the woman continued, adding that she planned to hold several meetings with lawyers and Russian diplomats in New York to discuss further steps in the case with them.
There is still an issue that has not been settled, Alla Bout continued. She said that a CD with video messages for her husband, including the most important one from his mother, has not been given to Bout. His lawyer has already received an official rejection, so now, an embassy will try to achieve some progress on this issue.
Alla Bout did not rule out she might ask Russian Ombudswoman Tatiana Moskalkova for help with the CD.
Bout was arrested in Bangkok in 2008 in a joint operation between Thai and US authorities on charges of conspiring to kill US nationals by allegedly agreeing to supply Colombian rebels with weapons. In 2010, he was extradited to the United States where he was sentenced to 25 years in jail. Bout has denied the charges.
