Bangkok's appeals court is considering an appeal by the Thai government against the criminal court's ruling in August that Bout should not be sent to the United States to stand trial.

A US official said Wednesday that US President Barack Obama on his Asia trip next month will press Thailand to go ahead with the extradition.

"Every country's justice system is sovereign and no one can interfere or pressure the judges," Sirisak Tiyapan, executive director of international affairs at the Thai Attorney-General's Office said.

"This case is under deliberation by the Court of Appeal... To extradite or not is up to the court," he said, giving no details of when a verdict could be expected.

Bout's colourful life is said to have inspired the Hollywood film "Lord of Death" and he is accused of peddling weapons around the world, including to Al-Qaeda.

Kurt Campbell, the assistant US secretary of state for East Asia, said that US officials including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have raised the case in every meeting with Thailand.

"We are pressing it as hard as we possibly can," Campbell testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Obama heads next month on his first presidential visit to Asia. In Singapore, he will take part in an Asia-Pacific summit and meet leaders of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Thailand.

"I will certainly make sure that this issue is raised within the context of his trip to Southeast Asia," Campbell said.

Bout, a burly former Soviet airforce officer, was arrested in March 2008 at a five-star hotel in Bangkok where he was allegedly arranging to sell surface-to-air missiles to US agents posing as Colombian guerrillas.

A Bangkok court ruled that it did not have the authority to extradite Bout because the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was not listed as a terrorist group in Thailand -- a decision praised by Moscow.

The nickname "Merchant of Death" was coined by a former British foreign office minister and also used for a 2007 book on Bout's alleged activities.

earlier related report
Verdict due Tuesday in Angola arms trafficking trial
A French court will hand down verdicts Tuesday in the trial of 42 politicians, businessmen and members of the Parisian elite accused of trafficking arms to Angola in the 1990s.

Prosecutors are seeking six-year jail sentences for Russian-born Israeli businessman Arkadi Gaydamak and his French associate Pierre Falcone for the weapons shipments worth 790 million dollars to Angola.

The huge arsenal -- 420 tanks, 150,000 shells, 170,000 anti-personnel mines, 12 helicopters, six warships -- shored up President Eduardo Dos Santos's regime during its vicious bush war against the UNITA rebels.

Angola pushed to have the trial abandoned, while President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Luanda in May 2008 to mend ties strained by the case.

Observers believe a harsh verdict could poison France's relations with Angola, where it hopes to develop massive oil contracts.

The arms sales began when Socialist president Francois Mitterrand was president in 1993 but continued until 1998, three years after conservative Jacques Chirac's election.

Mitterrand's son and former Africa advisor, Jean-Christophe, faces a year in jail on charges of accepting millions of euros in "consultant fees" on the arms deals between 1993 and 1998.

Others facing suspended jail sentences include former interior minister Charles Pasqua and novelist Paul-Loup Sulitzer.

From October 2008 to March this year, judges struggled to make sense of a labyrinth of murky deals linking French politicians, businessmen and public figures and a massive arms shipment to a war-torn African country.

Prosecutors claim the shipment was in itself illegal, although the main defendants dispute this, and allege many millions of dollars were skimmed off the contract to pay bribes to senior French and Angolan figures.

But despite a promise to come and explain his role, Gaydamak has remained in Israel. He is said to have used his contacts in Eastern Europe to get his hands on the Soviet-designed weapons that were shipped to Luanda.

Falcone, who holds French, Canadian and Angolan citizenship, was named Angola's ambassador to the United Nations Paris-based cultural organisation UNESCO in 2003 and has claimed diplomatic immunity in the case.

Several defendants have insisted the trade was carried out in full view of French authorities but that Paris kept quiet to shore up a regional ally and protect an important source of oil.

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