Thais arrest "Merchant of Death" arms dealer

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Viktor Bout, an international arms dealer dubbed the "Merchant of Death", was arrested in Thailand on Thursday accused of trying to buy weapons for Colombian rebels, Thai police said.

Bout, the target of an international arrest warrant and U.S. sanctions, was picked up at a Bangkok hotel after entering Thailand on Feb. 29. Police were searching for an associate.

He was attempting "to procure weapons for Colombia's FARC rebels", the Thai police said in an arrest report.

The leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, are fighting a four-decade-old insurgency against the Bogota government.

Bout has run a network of air cargo companies in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and the United States.

According to the United Nations and the U.S. Treasury Department, he has sold or brokered arms that have helped fuel wars in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan.

The U.S. Treasury Department seized his cargo planes and froze other assets in 2006.

Bout -- a former Soviet air force officer born in Tajikistan in 1967, according to Russian media reports -- has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Stephan Rapp, Chief Prosecutor at Sierra Leone's U.N.-backed war crimes court, welcomed the arrest: "It's very good news for justice and for international law enforcement."