Thailand Drops Case Against Five Men With N Korean Weapons

[travellight]

you guys must be all nuts or something, the fault of these guys that they are PILOTS and CREW of a plane, I don't think it's their fault, they are just working for a cargo company and will take the plane from point A to point B . You wouldn't blame a crew of a plane that carried Saddam, or Osama Bin Laden as passangers?????

Haha...

Some people have too much good in their hearts, and tend to see the world as they are, I guess.

No fault of yours, but honestly...

You don't run guns without a trained crew. Chonger may be unstable, but not completely stupid.

[webfact]

UPDATE

Thailand deporting 5 aircrew for carrying North Korean weapons

BANGKOK: -- (TNA) - The five-man crew of the aircraft carrying weapons from North Korea to Ukraine via Sri Lanka will be deported to their home countries after Thailand's Office of the Attorney-General (OAG) dropped all charges against them, a senior prosecutor said on Thursday.

The crew—pilot Mikhail Petukjou, 54 from Belarus and Alexandr Zrybnev, 53, Viktor Abdullayev, 58, Vitaliy Shumkov, 54, and Ilyas Issakov, 53, all from Kazakhtan—will be deported to their respective countries.

OAG Special Cases Division director-general Thanapit Moonlapruek said the agency decided not to indict the aircrew after concluding that the arms found in the plane were not intended for use in Thailand as they had landed in Bangkok only to refuel before continuing to their intended destination. In addition, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution Number 1874 (2009) did not stipulate any legal action to be taken against the crew.

Moreover, the governments of Belarus and Kazakhstan had submitted letters through Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting the temporary release of the crew to face investigation in their home countries.

Mr Thanapit said the OAG dropped all charges against them as prosecuting the crew would negatively affect the good relations existing between Thailand, Belarus and Kazakstan.

They will be freed from Bangkok Remand Prison once the court order is granted. They will be taken to the Immigration Bureau for the procedures to deport them to their respective countries, the OAG official said.

Their Russian-made plane refuelled at Don Mueang airport on December 12 enroute from North Korea to Ukraine, via Sri Lanka.

After searching, the Thai authorities found that new, ready-to-use military weapons including explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, components for surface-to-air missiles and other armaments totally weighing some 35 tonnes, were carried on the aircraft.

The five men were arrested and charged with carrying weapons without permission, illegally bringing them to Thailand and failing to inform officials of their items.

The shipment breached the UN Security Council resolution which bans North Korea from exporting arms and weapons-related material.

The Thai government has informed the United Nations over the impounded weapons.

Mr Thanapit said the case could not be considered as an extradition-related case, but only as illegal entry, that is violating immigration law. He said the case was finalised. (TNA)

-- TNA 2010-02-11

[newsfooter][/newsfooter]

[NativeBob]

What a load of. Kept 5 men for no reason and now: ".. not benefit Thailand"

What will ?

[gemini81]

unbelievable. I see why they call it "amazing Thailand" implying the good, bad, the unexpected..and the completely ludicrous.

There has to be other details behind the scenes explaining this...bribes, fear, some international relations...this isn't the whole story. To say it doesn't involve them yet the plane arrives here, thats completely false. cant rely on any of this media coverage.....

[scorecard]

The Thai press release says they will not be extradited.

But will they be allowed to chose their own destination upon departing Thailand, or is it already planned / agreed (but not mentioned in the press release) that part of the deportation process will be to put them on very specifc flights to countries which will deal with them on arrival in the local formal court processes (or perhaps even informal punishment processesed)?

If that is the case then Thailand has perhaps done the right thing to ensure their is some formal processing of these people but without Thailand having to foot the bill and the hassles.

[ThaiKneeTim]

Is Thailand going to keep the somewhat aging transport plane? It's a bit big for a gate guardian, isn't it?

I also wonder if they will keep that old IL-76 airplane. The cargo is of higher value than the plane itself. I saw a 1986 IL-76TD for sale at $1.5M "as is, where is".

I had a look around inside one of those things some years ago, it was in Soviet Air Force use as support for display aircraft, the avionics where frighteningly outdated, and the navigators seat was in the nose, about 1 meter from the runway, imagine sitting there are the aircraft came in to land. I used to work the C130's of the RAF, and got to look inside a civil charter C130, very sparse compared to the RAF version.

At the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford one year, they had a C130 meet, when the C130 had been in RAF service for 25 years, the differences between the C130's of various air forces was quite astounding.

[webfact]

UPDATE

Thailand drops charges over North Korea arms

by Thanaporn Promyamyai

BANGKOK: -- (AFP) - Thailand said on Thursday it had decided to drop charges against the crew of a plane carrying sanctions-busting weapons from North Korea and ordered the five men deported.

The attorney general's office said it was not in the national interest to pursue the case against the Belarussian pilot and four-member Kazakh crew and said they would instead face trial in their home countries.

"The trial here will not benefit Thailand so we have decided to drop the charges," Thanapich Mulapruk, spokesman for the attorney general's office, said in a statement.

"Their countries of origin want to try the men in their home countries."

No decision has been taken on what to do with the seized haul, which was seized on December 11 on a US tip-off after the crew requested to land their Ilyushin-76 plane at Thailand's domestic Don Mueang airport for refuelling.

The men, who claimed they were carrying oil drilling equipment bound for Ukraine, were initially charged with possessing illegal weapons and ammunition, smuggling weapons and other banned products and failing to report the cache.

The 35-tonne cargo, which included missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, now is being held at an air force base north of Bangkok.

"The plane landed to refuel. Those arms were not aimed at attacking Thailand so the trial does not benefit (us)," Thanapich added.

The United Nations banned all North Korean arms exports in a tougher resolution passed in June following Pyongyang's latest missile and nuclear tests.

The Bangkok case is believed to be the first airborne arms cargo from Pyongyang to have been seized since then.

A flight plan obtained by investigators showed the plane was bound for Iran -- which has denied it was the destination -- while US intelligence chief Dennis Blair has said it was headed to the Middle East.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at the time that the United States was "very pleased" with the seizure of the weapons and that it "demonstrates the importance of international solidarity behind the sanctions".

A spokeswoman for the US embassy in Bangkok said she could not immediately comment on Thursday's developments.

Thai prison authorities said they were awaiting a court order to hand the men over to police for fingerprinting before they are in turn handed to immigration officials for deportation.

But they were not being formally extradited, another official said.

Kazakhstan and Belarus both petitioned Thailand to ask for their nationals to be released for trial in their home countries.

Analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn university, said the decision to release the men was a blow to the United States.

"It will be received as another point against Thailand in the American scheme of things," said Thitinan, adding that Thailand did not want to gain enemies by proceeding with the case.

"I think the conclusion here was that the North Koreans have sparred with the Americans and there's a UN resolution on this, but why should Thailand be dragged into it?" he said.

The five men had been held at the same jail as Russian alleged arms dealer Viktor Bout, dubbed the "Merchant of Death".

He was arrested in Bangkok in March 2008 while allegedly agreeing to supply missiles to Colombian rebels. The Thai government is perceived to have worked closely with Washington on that case and is appealing a court decision rejecting a US request for his extradition.

-- ©Copyright AFP 2010-02-11

Published with written approval from AFP.

[newsfooter][/newsfooter]

[zen56]

The Thai authorities will be fully aware that not only does the Captain have to sign the cargo manifest but he must take reasonable steps to check the accuracy of it. They will also be aware that the crews flying these types of missions know exactly what they are getting into. Flights of this nature routing via the UAE are primarily involved in gun running and have been for many years. If Thailand really has let the crew off the hook then the UN will not be amused. Either way it is another example of this country’s flexible principles but given that it is a very minor player on the world stage it may actually be the best policy.

[dick turpin]

Oh, what a tangled web we weave....

Seized Il-76 tracked back to Kazakhstan

AN extensive investigation into the tangled web of shell companies that were behind the Il-76 seized in Bangkok (Thailand) for arms running, has tracked its owner back to Almaty (Kazakhstan).

The cargo aircraft and crew were detained last year by the Thai authorities after a tip-off from US intelligence agencies. On board were 35 tons of explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, surface-to-air missiles and other weaponry picked up from North Korea and destined for…which is where the trail grows murky. The crew and manifest claimed the cargo to be “oil industry spare parts”.

Research uncovered layer upon layer of suspiciously new and previously unknown companies and an extremely elaborate flight path. Starting in Baku (Azerbaijan) it first flew to Al-Fujairah (UAE) and Bangkok before taking on its cargo in Pyongyang (North Korea). It then returned to Bangkok where it was then held. If it had been allowed to continue on its journey it would have continued to Colombo (Sri Lanka), then Al-Fujairah again, on to Kiev, where it would double back to Tehran (Iran) to offload and then ending up in Podgorica (Montenegro): in total, a distance of over 24,500km.

The web of companies is just as tortuous. Overseas Trading FZE, a leasing company based in Sharjah (UAE) and owned by Svetlana Zykova, leased the Il-76 to a Georgian firm, Air West, owned by Levan Kakabadze. Air West in turn leased the aircraft to SP Trading, a company that was created by Yury Lunyov only weeks before the deal was set in motion. SP Trading charted the aircraft to the Hong Kong-registered Union Top Management (UTM). UTM was also only created a month previously. The founder of UTM – Dario Cabreros Garmendia of Spain – cannot be found nor can the North Korean company that sourced the weapons.

Lunyov claims that another company – the Ukrainian Aerotrack – had responsibility for chaperoning the shipment from North Korea to Iran and that it was Aerotrack that originally falsified the charter agreement and packing list to suggest the freight was the spare parts.

No Aerotrack has ever been at its listed address and its main contact’s – Victoria Doneckaya – telephone number is a private residence that has never heard of her or Aerotrack.

In fact, all the companies’ owners (at least, those that could be found) – Zykova, Kakabadze and Lunyov – deny ever knowing what the shipment was. However, they all share one connection: Alexander Zykov, husband to Zykova and known associate of Lunyov.

Zykov owns East Wing a Kazakhstani airfreight company. It was his crew that were detained. Companies and aircraft belonging to Zykov are known to have been involved in arms trafficking in sub-Saharan Africa. However, Zykov claims that the crew were on temporary leave when they were caught.

Friends and family of the crew say that working for Zykov is well paid but in return the crew must ask no questions of the shipments and be prepared to fly dangerously ill-maintained aircraft into conflict zones, such as the Sudan and Somalia.

A friend and once fellow pilot of one of the crewmembers – Mikhail Petukhov – said: “It’s not easy working for [East Wings]. For one thing, their planes are old, so the flights are dangerous. And it also means being ready to break pretty much every aviation law on the books. But it’s work, and they pay well," he said.

An engineer who regularly works on Zykov’s aircraft said: “You get paid to do the flight, and you don't ask any questions about what's inside the boxes.”

[BSJ]

Isn't the direct route from North Korea over China, Mongolia, Kazakstan, Russia then into Ukraine, yes? Taking a 7000km detour doesn't make sense. I guess thats what made the Thai authorities suspicious in the first place.

I reckon the crew knew what they had on board.

[LazyCat]

travellight I know what I'm talking about.

Edited February 11, 2010 by LazyCat

[nonghoidave]

Didn't expect this, lucky for them they were only smuggling arms and breaking international law / sanctions. Imagine what could have happened if the popped into a pharmacy and bought some Valium or Viagra!!! They'd be in deep poo poo then.

Amazing Thailand Indeed.

If by ignoring UN edicts you mean "breaking international law/sanctions", then Israel should be serving Life Without Parole.

This was a non-story from the get-go. Some fool in Thailand that ordered their detention is saving face by releasing them "for trial" in their native countries: there will be no "trial." The munitions will be returned to owner.

"Oh my, lookie, Iran is buying weapons Mabel, let's all panic".....like they aren't being surrounded and isolated by the US and UK forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Uncle Sam wants YOUR OIL, Iran.

The US Wehrmacht remains the largest single user of petroleum in the world, every day. And the propaganda msm drum beat intensifies.......

[manarak]

hmm...

I'll probably get flamed for my point of view, but here I go anyway:

First:

- "illegal arms trade"

this is a political view of things. North Korea is a sovereign country and Iran and the other buyers are also sovereign countries, so if NK is selling to another country, it cannot be qualified as being illegal, since both countries agree and there is no other applicable "international law".

I cannot see how a decision taken by a lobby of other countries can become a law for NK or Kazakhstan or Iran?

Therefore I consider that "illegal weapons" is misleading, I would be in favor of the following formulation:

"weapons that North Korea sold, in spite of being told by USA and their friends not to"

Second:

legality of the transport

The transport was legal at its departure in NK, and was legal at the cargo's destinations.

It was certainly illegal in Thailand, since this kind of transport requires approval of Thai authorities.

So I wonder why they didn't chose a safer flightplan, for example landing in Cambodia, Laos or Myanmar?

Or maybe they had an unofficial ok from Thailand, and Thailand sold them to the UN to regain face? Maybe to compensate for the Bout case? who knows.

I think for Thailand the Iranians/NorthKoreans/Kazakhs etc. is expendable business in which they have no interest, yet they refused extradition for Bout.

Third: the crew

Just some people trying to earn money for their families in Ukraine and Belarus.

I don't think they know much nor would a Thai court sentence change anything in this business.

Fourth: the alleged traffickers like Viktor Bout

Again, this is political.

The crime of Mr. Bout is to sell arms to people who aren't friends of the US of A.

At the same time, there are many US-backed arms dealers who do the same business selling arms to people who have US support.

No doubt there would be a huge wave of indignation if Russia arrested an American "business man" in a sting operation in Ukraine or Turkey, on charges that he sold Arms to Ukraine's orange revolution party or to Kirghiz opposition.

Immediately, the world would be full of American disinformation, denouncing "trumped charges", unfair court hearings, etc.

Think about it.

[WISteve]

Isn't the direct route from North Korea over China, Mongolia, Kazakstan, Russia then into Ukraine, yes? Taking a 7000km detour doesn't make sense. I guess thats what made the Thai authorities suspicious in the first place.

I reckon the crew knew what they had on board.

Of course they knew what was in the shipment.

Since when is North Korea known for being a source of oil drilling equipment to start with? And the crew knew they were involved in a flight that was contrary to multiple UN sanctions even if there was a slim chance the cargo was actually what was on the manifest.

In my opinion the Thais have managed to find a course of action which will anger just about everyone in the international community (releasing obvious arms smugglers) and all because of a back-hander some one is getting along the way. The Middle Eastern or African buyer isn't going to be happy, North Korea won't be happy for losing their shipment and Belarus and Kazakhstan likely could give a hoot about these guys who brought them some bad press. One more time someone high in government will benefit and the military will get some new toys at the price of world opinion about Thailand.

One more time Thailand can be counted on to be a responsible member of the United Nations and the world community-NOT!

[nonghoidave]

you guys must be all nuts or something, the fault of these guys that they are PILOTS and CREW of a plane, I don't think it's their fault, they are just working for a cargo company and will take the plane from point A to point B .

I see your point, but that would be a notable double-standard.

Examples:

- I am responsible for the contents of my own luggage. If someone else slips something in there without my knowledge, I can go to prison for it -- It's hard to prove you did not do it yourself.

- And if I choose to bring something which I do not realize violates a law, then I can go to prison for it -- Ignorance of the law is rarely a valid excuse.

- And if my boss orders me to do something illegal, then I can still go to prison for it. Of course the boss could get a worse sentence, but 'just following orders' is not a good enough excuse.

-Spode

Hahahaha, you live in a black and white world that does not exist, Spode: there is no "justice." These guys are being released because they are in fact working under the knowledge and complicity of some State (or States) government(s). Or, maybe Kim gave Abhisit a call, and asked him if he'd like a close up look at a NK missile test???

Whatever, you or I won't know where this load will end up: I'm guessing it's LEGAL and WAITING owner/buyer's location: Iran.

"Odd" how we "pick and choose" which incidents to call "crimes": Israel has @ 100 UN edicts against it, which it ignores with obvious disgust, because their Uncle Sam vetoes making them responsible for THEIR GENOCIDE or the Palestinians. Iran complies with UN edicts, btw.

Genocide, invasion and occupation of Palestine by Israel, committed with US supplied weaponry. Which the US leads the world in selling. WMDs. US supplied. WMDs. US supplied. WMDs.

Who cares about this piddly little LEGAL arms shipment??

Go back and look at original thread, I called it exactly: The crew would be released, the plane sent on it's way.

Isn't Rocket Science. Someone in Thailand goofed up by interfering with this flight.

[Jonathanpattaya]

I thought this decision was made last week as reported by the BBC.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Jonathanpattaya

[konangrit]

Those arms were not aimed at attacking Thailand so the trial does not benefit (us)," added Thanapich.

So I guess this also applies to drug traffickers who were only transiting through the Country with no intention of selling them in Thailand!

Edited February 11, 2010 by konangrit

[moskito]

,,,,,,,,,No decision has been taken on what to do with the seized haul,

LOL, does anyone expected something else? the plane was in TRANSIT anyway, so there was obviously absolutely NO REASON

FOR keeping it....just a CIA tipoff, I bet my next month salary

So lets just wait until nobody ask for release of the weapons and some guys will make some big money...Mission accomplished

[travellight]

travellight I know what I'm talking about.

As do I. But it wasn't meant as a jab to you personally. I'm just bored and it's always amusing reading what the media reports to the general public, and seeing how people react.

[konangrit]

"The trial here will not benefit Thailand so we have decided to drop the charges,"

"The plane landed to refuel. Those arms were not aimed at attacking Thailand so the trial does not benefit (us),"

On a more serious note, surely prosecuting them would act as a deterrent to others considering trafficking arms through Thailand? I would consider that as a fairly big benefit to Thailand. By not prosecuting them they are basically sending out a signal that if you want to traffic arms and get let off, do it through Thailand.

[yesdavy]

How do you claim you are sending them to their home countries for prosecution because they entered Thailand illegally after they radioed for permission to land and refuel? You know what this is? Locals here have grown up accepting everything their teachers, viz., authority figures, told them in school without asking questions so teachers would not lose face and you have a nation of non-questioners that authority figures can satisfy with even the least plausible of explanations.

[aka_jack]

So these guys get caught and deny knowledge of the arms, and are released as it is no benefit to try them in thailand ! Some poor guy gets caught with a hand full of viagra or valium and is sold them in a pharmacy believing it legal, and there looking a couple of years ! yer right that makes sense !

[surangw]

anyone want to speculate on how much of the lot ( arms) inventory will change over the time it is "in custody"

[ding]

you guys must be all nuts or something, the fault of these guys that they are PILOTS and CREW of a plane, I don't think it's their fault, they are just working for a cargo company and will take the plane from point A to point B . You wouldn't blame a crew of a plane that carried Saddam, or Osama Bin Laden as passangers?????

the cargo company who GOT this job and GOT PAID accordingly to the cargo they agreed to move AND was putting them at risk is no where to be seen!!!! I would think they are more to blame.

OR would you think that these 5 men got the weapon transporting gig by themselves, right and they just happened to have a plane to transport it ????? it's not same as "buy a pickup truck and do the "shifting and moving" on it in your free time" !!!

lol

[siampolee]

Abba hit song is the theme or this fiasco.

Money, Money, Money, It's the Rich Mans Tool.

It does lead to speculation whether there may be a connection between that well known international arms dealer Adam Khashoggni who is a close friend of a certain self exiled person who has more than a vested interest in seeing civil unrest in Thailand ?

[backsoon]

Oh, what a tangled web we weave....

Seized Il-76 tracked back to Kazakhstan

AN extensive investigation into the tangled web of shell companies that were behind the Il-76 seized in Bangkok (Thailand) for arms running, has tracked its owner back to Almaty (Kazakhstan).

The cargo aircraft and crew were detained last year by the Thai authorities after a tip-off from US intelligence agencies. On board were 35 tons of explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, surface-to-air missiles and other weaponry picked up from North Korea and destined for…which is where the trail grows murky. The crew and manifest claimed the cargo to be "oil industry spare parts".

Research uncovered layer upon layer of suspiciously new and previously unknown companies and an extremely elaborate flight path. Starting in Baku (Azerbaijan) it first flew to Al-Fujairah (UAE) and Bangkok before taking on its cargo in Pyongyang (North Korea). It then returned to Bangkok where it was then held. If it had been allowed to continue on its journey it would have continued to Colombo (Sri Lanka), then Al-Fujairah again, on to Kiev, where it would double back to Tehran (Iran) to offload and then ending up in Podgorica (Montenegro): in total, a distance of over 24,500km.

The web of companies is just as tortuous. Overseas Trading FZE, a leasing company based in Sharjah (UAE) and owned by Svetlana Zykova, leased the Il-76 to a Georgian firm, Air West, owned by Levan Kakabadze. Air West in turn leased the aircraft to SP Trading, a company that was created by Yury Lunyov only weeks before the deal was set in motion. SP Trading charted the aircraft to the Hong Kong-registered Union Top Management (UTM). UTM was also only created a month previously. The founder of UTM – Dario Cabreros Garmendia of Spain – cannot be found nor can the North Korean company that sourced the weapons.

Lunyov claims that another company – the Ukrainian Aerotrack – had responsibility for chaperoning the shipment from North Korea to Iran and that it was Aerotrack that originally falsified the charter agreement and packing list to suggest the freight was the spare parts.

No Aerotrack has ever been at its listed address and its main contact's – Victoria Doneckaya – telephone number is a private residence that has never heard of her or Aerotrack.

In fact, all the companies' owners (at least, those that could be found) – Zykova, Kakabadze and Lunyov – deny ever knowing what the shipment was. However, they all share one connection: Alexander Zykov, husband to Zykova and known associate of Lunyov.

Zykov owns East Wing a Kazakhstani airfreight company. It was his crew that were detained. Companies and aircraft belonging to Zykov are known to have been involved in arms trafficking in sub-Saharan Africa. However, Zykov claims that the crew were on temporary leave when they were caught.

Friends and family of the crew say that working for Zykov is well paid but in return the crew must ask no questions of the shipments and be prepared to fly dangerously ill-maintained aircraft into conflict zones, such as the Sudan and Somalia.

A friend and once fellow pilot of one of the crewmembers – Mikhail Petukhov – said: "It's not easy working for [East Wings]. For one thing, their planes are old, so the flights are dangerous. And it also means being ready to break pretty much every aviation law on the books. But it's work, and they pay well," he said.

An engineer who regularly works on Zykov's aircraft said: "You get paid to do the flight, and you don't ask any questions about what's inside the boxes."

BRILLIANT!!! Precise, concise, well researched, informative... Thanks.

[RKASA]

hmm...

I'll probably get flamed for my point of view, but here I go anyway:

First:

- "illegal arms trade"

this is a political view of things. North Korea is a sovereign country and Iran and the other buyers are also sovereign countries, so if NK is selling to another country, it cannot be qualified as being illegal, since both countries agree and there is no other applicable "international law".

I cannot see how a decision taken by a lobby of other countries can become a law for NK or Kazakhstan or Iran?

Therefore I consider that "illegal weapons" is misleading, I would be in favor of the following formulation:

"weapons that North Korea sold, in spite of being told by USA and their friends not to"

Second:

legality of the transport

The transport was legal at its departure in NK, and was legal at the cargo's destinations.

It was certainly illegal in Thailand, since this kind of transport requires approval of Thai authorities.

So I wonder why they didn't chose a safer flightplan, for example landing in Cambodia, Laos or Myanmar?

Or maybe they had an unofficial ok from Thailand, and Thailand sold them to the UN to regain face? Maybe to compensate for the Bout case? who knows.

I think for Thailand the Iranians/NorthKoreans/Kazakhs etc. is expendable business in which they have no interest, yet they refused extradition for Bout.

Third: the crew

Just some people trying to earn money for their families in Ukraine and Belarus.

I don't think they know much nor would a Thai court sentence change anything in this business.

Fourth: the alleged traffickers like Viktor Bout

Again, this is political.

The crime of Mr. Bout is to sell arms to people who aren't friends of the US of A.

At the same time, there are many US-backed arms dealers who do the same business selling arms to people who have US support.

No doubt there would be a huge wave of indignation if Russia arrested an American "business man" in a sting operation in Ukraine or Turkey, on charges that he sold Arms to Ukraine's orange revolution party or to Kirghiz opposition.

Immediately, the world would be full of American disinformation, denouncing "trumped charges", unfair court hearings, etc.

Think about it.

They are not being told by the US its the UN and Thailand voted for the same thing and now they changed their mind because North Korea will dump 100b Baht in fakes on pattya beach if they don't. You really think Iran and North Korea are good guys?

[warlord]

Is Thailand going to keep the somewhat aging transport plane? It's a bit big for a gate guardian, isn't it?

mayby they can drop it off shore to creat a new coral reef

[Arkady]

I am sure a wellcoming party is ready for them, including Vodka and Caviar. Well done Thailand.

they are just normal folks, you don't kinow the situation, just like any other crew, got paid just as much and there will be happy families meeting them home not some MAFIA and vodka/caviar celebration.... they are simple guys. Sad that no one understands this. it is not like the movies you se about narcobarons where the whole plane knows and gets paid millions to transport the thing, they were ust hired crew of a cargo company who got the gig.

It's pretty similar to the guys that get busted driving pick-ups full of ya ba. It's just a normal haulage job for them and they don't get paid a heck of a lot but they can draw 30 year sentences in Thailand nevertheless. On the other hand, the Victor Bout case set a precedent that selling arms to FARC terrorists in Colombia is not an offence because they are not a threat to Thailand and no Thais have yet been kidnapped or murdered by them. Thailand's relations with major global powers like Belorus and Kazakhastan are obviously far too precious to upset just to please paranoid tin pot countries like the US that view themselves as targets of international terrorism. Actually one wonders why they bothered to arrest the plane at all. But wait.......there is one missing detail. The consignment of arms has not been returned and the military was given responsibility for doing the inventory. No one is claiming the cargo, so it would do no harm to flog a few crates on the black market.

[webfact]

UPDATE

Thailand to deport North Korea arms crew

by Boonradom Chitradon

BANGKOK: -- (AFP) - Thailand will Friday deport a five-man plane crew detained in Bangkok with a 35-tonne cache of sanctions-busting arms from North Korea after charges against them were dropped.

The Belarussian pilot and four Kazakh crew were detained in December after flying into Bangkok to refuel with a cargo which included missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Thai authorities initially charged the men with possessing illegal weapons and ammunition, smuggling weapons and other banned products and failing to report the cache.

But on Thursday, the attorney general's office said it was not in the national interest to pursue the case and that the five would be deported.

"Immigration police will escort them to Suvarnabhumi Airport this afternoon at 5 pm (1000 GMT) and they are scheduled to fly back to Kazakhstan and Belarus respectively on commercial flights," their lawyer Somsak Saithong told AFP.

Thai premier Abhisit Vejjajiva told reporters that officials had already coordinated with their home countries to receive them.

Belarus and Kazakhstan petitioned Bangkok to allow the men to be released for trial in their own countries.

The crew landed at Thailand's domestic Don Mueang airport in their Ilyushin-76 plane on December 11 for refuelling, claiming that they were carrying oil drilling equipment bound for Ukraine.

The United Nations banned all North Korean arms exports in June last year and the Bangkok case is believed to be the first breach of the resolution with an airborne cargo.

The United States is believed to have tipped Thai authorities off about the haul.

The US was instrumental in passing the resolution following Pyongyang's latest missile and nuclear tests. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said the US was "very pleased" with Thailand's weapons seizure.

Following the Thai decision to drop the case, US embassy spokeswoman Cynthia Brown said Friday: "This was a matter for the Thai attorney-general's office to decide. We respect the independence of Thailand's system.

"We do want to applaud Thailand for their implementation of the resolution and their responsible decision to report this information."

She added that the UN committee set up to enforce the resolution was continuing to investigate the incident.

Abhisit said the government was waiting for the UN's recommendation on what to do with the haul, which is being held at an air force base north of Bangkok.

A flight plan obtained by investigators showed the plane was bound for Iran -- which has denied it was the destination -- while US intelligence chief Dennis Blair has said it was headed to the Middle East.

The five men had been held at the same jail as Russian alleged arms dealer Viktor Bout, dubbed the "Merchant of Death".

He was arrested in Bangkok in March 2008 while allegedly agreeing to supply missiles to Colombian rebels. The Thai government is perceived to have worked closely with Washington on that case and is appealing a court decision rejecting a US request for his extradition.

-- ©Copyright AFP 2010-02-12

Published with written approval from AFP.

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