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Merchant of death and world's mostwanted Viktor Bout is pleading for Russia to free him from his sweltering Bangkok prison cell.

The man busted in a capital hotel early last month in a combined ThailandUS sting was shown on Moscow television making his desperate appeal through prison bars.

Bout is accused of fuelling conflicts in Afghanistan and other international hotspots, including sales to the Taliban, Osama bin Laden's AlQaeda and former Liberian leader Charles Taylor.

The Americans want to prosecute him there for selling weapons to Colombia's Farc rebels. Thailand has decided not to charge him here.

Bout is the man behind the character in the hit Nicholas Cage move "Lord of War".

Bout is on the United Nations Security Council's travelban list and assetsfreeze alert.

He's an exKGB spy and a highly trained soldier.

In Bout's televised appeal he says he's being held unlawfully in Thailand on "fabricated American accusations".

"I, Viktor Bout, appeal to the government of the Russian Federation ... to take measures to free me.

"I didn't commit any crimes in Thailand, where I spent only three hours and then was arrested. I have never been to the United States," he says.

A Russian foreign ministry spokesman says it will "follow the course of the investigation ... including the validity of the accusations".

The Nation, Agencies