Russian arms dealer gets 25 years in prison
Last edited Fri Apr 6, 2012, 01:24 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: AlJAZEERA
A US judge sentences "Merchant of death" Viktor Bout to 25 years in prison for conspiring to sell a massive arsenal to anti-American guerrillas in Colombia.
Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer who was the subject of a book titled "Merchant of Death," has been sentenced to 25 years in prison by a US judge in New York.
Bout, 45, was arrested in Bangkok in 2008 after a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting operation and extradited to New York in November 2010 to face trial.
Thursday’s sentencing came after the government portrayed Bout as one of the world's worst villains, capable of empowering dictators in war-torn countries by supplying weapons that they could turn on their own people.
The defence had countered that Bout was a political prisoner, a victim of a sting operation that made it seem as if he hated Americans and was willing to sell surface-to-air missiles to a Colombian terrorist organization to shoot down American helicopters.
The judge also ordered $15 million forfeiture.
Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/04/20124522433245829.html
Another one bites the dust ....
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