A United States court on Thursday sentenced a Russian arms trafficker to 25 years in prison for conspiring to kill US nationals and for providing weapons to a terrorist organization in Latin America, dpa reported.
Judge Shira Scheindlin of the Federal District Court in New York City also fined Viktor Bout 15 million dollars. A jury had found him guilty of counts of conspiring to kill US citizens who assisted the government in Colombia more than a decade ago in the fight against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The US has declared FARC a terrorist organization.
Bout, 45, was also accused by Washington of trying to sell FARC 20 million dollars' worth of anti-aircraft missiles, other weapons and ammunition. He was convicted in November 2011.
The former Soviet Air Force officer was arrested in Thailand in March 2008 in a sting operation orchestrated by the US Drug Enforcement Administration and later extradited to the United States to stand trial for trying to kill US citizens.