What Next: Is It Time to Free the “Merchant of Death”?

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Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2022

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Known as the “Merchant of Death,” Viktor Bout illegally ferried weapons, diamonds, and even UN peacekeepers around the world. The man who wrote the book on Bout thinks it’s time to send him home, if it can free Brittney Griner. Guest: Douglas Farah, co-author of Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes and the Man Who Makes War Possible. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:37.3	The Brittany Griner trial in Russia has developed this cadence.
0:42.4	The American basketball star walks in, heavily guarded.
0:46.3	She's often led by an officer with a fierce-looking dog.
0:50.2	And then she's put in a cage right behind her lawyers.
0:53.7	Sometimes as things get started, she'll hold up pictures of her wife, of her WNBA teammates.
1:00.7	It seems like she's saying, I've got people out there.
1:04.1	Don't forget about me.
1:07.3	Griner has already pleaded guilty to drug charges.
1:11.1	She got caught carrying vape cartridges filled with cannabis oil.
1:15.1	And that's part of what makes this spectacle so strange.
1:19.0	This is trial.
1:20.0	It's going forward, even though the Russian government has already won.
1:24.1	So I think what the Russians are looking for is a political win on the propaganda side.
1:29.4	Former journalist Doug Farrah has been following Griner's trial from afar.
1:33.1	The pictures are very impactful and I think she looks like a prisoner.
1:38.0	And for someone, you know, in the cage, it's certainly conveys that she has no way out.
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