Bout-Chichakli update

The Dallas Observer reports on Richard Chichakli’s lawsuit against the feds, and also runs his reply. Essentially, the court threw out his case, but good.

The Observer also gets the honour of Chichakli comments spam – like this blog and Eurotrib, a sockpuppet calling itself “Graceland” rocked up to claim that he’s innocent, on the grounds that a Belgian investigation into Bout has been dropped. Mine came in from an IP address assigned to a Moscow-region ISP, mtu-net.ru.

The Belgian investigating magistrate did indeed close the file, but not for want of evidence. In fact, the document “Graceland” linked shows that the case was closed “wegen verjaaring”, because it ran out of time, primarily because neither Viktor nor Rich could be questioned.