Suspected arms dealer Viktor Bout is being kept in solitary confinement after his extradition from Thailand to the U.S. and is unable keep up with media reports, a Russian vice-consul in New York said on Wednesday.
"He is being kept in a high-security cellblock... Bout was placed in solitary confinement," vice-consul Alexander Otchainov told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government daily.
"He learns all the news from us. This is a prison rule, I was told... We give him printouts of online news, and all Russian-language newspapers must be examined," he said.
"It takes a good deal of time, because prison employees are unable to read them without a translation. It takes several days, and when Viktor Bout finally gets those papers, the information in them becomes largely irrelevant," the Russian diplomat went on.
Former Russian army officer Bout was arrested in Thailand in March 2008 during a sting operation led by U.S. agents and extradited to the United States last month after spending more than two and half years in Thai prisons.
The charges against him include conspiring to supply arms to terrorist groups and kill U.S. nationals. Bout denies all charges.
The next hearing in the case of the former Russian officer, dubbed the Merchant of Death by global media, will be held on January 10 next year. Bout could face from 25 years to life behind bars if convicted of all four charges against him.
MOSCOW, December 1 (RIA Novosti)
