«The Guardian»: Il-76 aircraft transporting arms had originally set off from Belarus

British mass media found Belarusian trace of the plane detained in Thailand. Il-76 allegedly refuelled at an airport near Kiev, and had originally set off from Belarus.

Foreign mass media offer different versions of the arms origin found on board of Ilyushin-76 aircraft detained in Thailand on December 12, BelaPAN informs.

The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, with a reference to its Ukrainian sources states that the plane originally set off from Belarus. It stopped for refueling in Kyiv before flying to North Korea. The newspaper notes that 40 tons of weapons and ammunition were loaded in Pyongyang.

Belarus denied information on December 14. As stated by the director of aviation department of Transport and Communications Ministry of Belarus Vadzim Melnik, Il-76 registered as 4L-AWA had never been at the territory of Belarus.

As Times Online reports with a reference to Hugh Griffiths, a weapons expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, before spring 2009 Il-76 4L-AWA was owned by Kazakh private aircraft company East Wind. Then it was bought by another Kazakh company Beirbas, connected with Serbian arms trafficker Tomislav Damnjanovic. In October this year the aircraft was sold to Georgian company Air West Georgia, and from it was leased by SP Traiding Ltd registered in New Zealand. Grifiths states that earlier the plane was owned by one of firms controlled by Viktor Bout, Russian arms dealer who is in Thai prison now.

As noted by Griffiths, purchase of the plane by Georgian company was a smokescreen, and the aircraft was continued to be used by criminal structures for arms deliveries.

The IL-76 aircraft, registration 4L-AWA, was detained in Bangkok, where it landed to refuel, on December 11. 35 tons of weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and other war weapons and containers with ammunition, were found. The crew, Mikhail Petukhov from Belarus, and Alexander Zrybnev, Viktor Abdullayev, Vitaly Shumkov and Ilyas Isakov from Kazakhstan, were was detained as well.

On Monday, December 14 the Criminal Court of Bangkok extended the term of detention for the crew for 12 more days.

The crew has been charged with possession of heavy weapons and misstating the nature of the cargo, officially described as "oil-drilling equipment". Crew members claim they had no idea they were carrying weapons. Under Thai laws, crew members can be sentenced for life.

Thailand is preparing a report for the UN concerning detention of a cargo with weapons flying from North Korea. In case it would be proved the plane had been carrying North Korean weapons in contravention of a UN Security Council ban on arms exports, it would be viewed as violations of the UN sanctions against North Korea.

Thai authorities also plan to ask the UN for funds for weapons destruction.