25 years for 'merchant of death'

Vitkor Bout, known as the 'merchant of death' for his dealings in the international arms market, was sentenced in a Manhattan court on Thursday to 25 years after a fall conviction that he conspired to sell a large cache of weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The 45-year-old Bout had long been thought to have supplied insurgency groups in bloody conflict regions with weapons. The former Soviet officer always maintained that he was a legitimate businessman.

Bout is Russian and was arrested in 2008 after a sting operation by the US in Thailand. He was extradited in 2010 and convicted in November on four counts of conspiracy to sell missiles to terrorists and to kill US soldiers.

The 25-year sentence is the minimum under federal guidelines in the US.

"Twenty-five years is sufficient," said US district judge Shira Scheindlin.

During the trial, Bout's defense attempted to depict Bout as a victim of entrapment by the US foces that carried out the sting operation.

Bout was "targeted not for investigation, for this was not an investigation -- it was a foregone conclusion," attorney Albert Dayan wrote in a letter Wednesday to Scheindlin.

When prosecutors said during Bout's appearance in court Thursday that he had agreed to sell weapons to kill Americans, Bout shouted "It's a lie!" and told the judge he never intended to kill anyone.

mz/slk (AFP, AP)