CHRIS ROPER: Of prisoner swaps, pawns and propaganda
There’s no equivalence between ‘merchant of death’ Viktor Bout and US basketball player Brittney Griner. But then there’s Lemekhani Nyirenda, a Zambian in a Russian prison who fought — and died — in the Ukraine war. Some prisoners, it seems, are more equal than others
15 December 2022 - 05:00
There’s something really sickening about the recent prisoner swap between Russia and the US. It’s perhaps an obvious point, but I’m still going to make it: how valuable a life is depends entirely on where the person is from.
On one side of the swap, you have Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, or the merchant of death as he’s known. Michael Braun, the former chief of operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, is quoted on CBS News as saying: “Viktor Bout, in my eyes, is one of the most dangerous men on the face of the earth.”..
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