Booth on the road to election
According to the UtroNews correspondent, businessman Viktor Bout, who previously languished in an American prison, got the opportunity to become a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Ulyanovsk Region. The corresponding decision was made by the regional CEC, registering him as a deputy on the list of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Shortly before that, rumors spread in the region that Bout might be denied registration. This was associated with an outstanding conviction received by a businessman in the United States.
As a result, the election commission did not have any questions for the candidate, because Russian law does not provide for restrictions in connection with a criminal record obtained in another state. And on the territory of the Russian Federation, Viktor Bout, who indicated his occupation as a “householder”, has no criminal record.
Recall that earlier Viktor Bout was convicted in the United States under nine paragraphs of the Code at once. Since the 1990s, the American security forces suspected him of supplying weapons and ammunition to various countries in Asia and Africa. In 2008, he was arrested in Thailand and extradited to the United States, where in 2012 he received a sentence of 25 years in prison on charges of arms trafficking, supporting terrorism, conspiracy to kill US citizens.
I must say that Bout himself categorically denied these accusations. The same point of view was shared by the Russian state, which made a lot of efforts to return the businessman to his homeland. In December 2022, this finally succeeded – in exchange for Bout, Russia gave up basketball player Brittney Geiner, who was convicted of drug trafficking. Shortly thereafter, Bout joined the Liberal Democratic Party.
The party itself said that their legal service did not even think of evaluating a candidate, taking into account the requirements of US law. They believe that Bout was subjected to political repression, accused of plotting against Washington. Such arguments of the repressive machine of a foreign state cannot be taken into account in opposition to the laws and values of Russia.
But earlier the plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation explained this practice. It turns out that the conviction of a person by a court of a foreign state for an act that is recognized as a crime in the Russian Federation may entail a restriction of the right to vote before the expiration of the period established by law.
However, experts interviewed by Kommersant argue that the election commission has every legal reason to ignore the verdict handed down to Bout. After all, the decisions of criminal courts of other states are recognized in the Russian Federation only if an appropriate agreement is concluded between the countries. Our country has such an agreement with the USA hzikhidtidekrt No.
It is also interesting that a conviction in the United States would rather increase Viktor Bout’s electoral prospects. Political scientist Konstantin Kalachev thinks so. In his opinion, this is not a matter of legal, but of political expediency.