"Although Bout has often described himself as nothing more than a businessman, he was a businessman of the most dangerous order," prosecutors said in their pre-sentencing memo. Minutes earlier, he had appeared angry when he interrupted a prosecutor who said he agreed to sell weapons to kill Americans, shouting in English: "It's a lie!"Įarlier, speaking through a Russian interpreter, he told the judge he "never intended to kill anyone" and said, "God knows this truth." Moscow has condemned the decision as "baseless and biased" and said it would do everything it could to ensure his return home.Īs Bout left court, he hugged his lawyer and waved to his wife.
"But for the approach made through this determined sting operation, there is no reason to believe Bout would ever have committed the charged crimes," she said. She said there was no evidence the 45-year-old Bout, a vegetarian and classical music fan who speaks six languages, had ever planned to harm Americans or commit a crime punishable in US courts until the sting was created. US District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan said it was sufficient and appropriate because Bout's crimes originated only because of an elaborate sting operation created by the Drug Enforcement Administration to catch one of the world's most notorious arms dealers. Viktor Bout's sentence was the mandatory minimum he faced, although federal sentencing guidelines had called for life in prison. A DEFIANT Russian arms dealer dubbed the Merchant of Death for his history of arming violent dictators and regimes has been sentenced to 25 years in prison, far short of the life term prosecutors sought for his conviction on terrorism charges that grew from a US sting operation.
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