Victor Bout convicted | Bangkok Post: breakingnews

NEW YORK : A New York jury Wednesday found Russian arms dealer Viktor ``Merchant of Death" Bout guilty of conspiring to sell a huge arsenal to terrorists, in a case which has sparked US-Russian tensions.

Viktor Bout, 44, was extradited from Thailand to the United States last year after a lengthy court case with cold-war style competition between US and Russian diplomats.He was found guilty on all four counts including conspiring to kill US service personnel and to sell anti-aircraft weapons.Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin set sentencing for Feb. 8. Bout faces a minimum of 25 years and possibly up to life in prison."As the evidence at trial showed, Viktor Bout was ready to sell a weapons arsenal that would be the envy of some small countries," the lead federal prosecutor for Manhattan, US Attorney Preet Bharara, said afterwards."With today's swift verdict, justice has been done and a very dangerous man will be behind bars," Bharara said.But Bout's lawyer, Albert Dayan, immediately promised an appeal."It's definitely not the end of the process. We will appeal," Dayan told reporters. "We believe this is not the end. We have a chance."Bout, dressed in a grey suit with a white shirt, looked despondent as he listened to the jury forewoman read out the verdict, reached after less than eight hours of deliberations over two days.He hugged Dayan after the verdict and was led back to a detention center. His wife Alla and their teenage daughter, present through most of the trial, were absent from the 15th floor courtroom, which was packed with journalists and law enforcement agents.Reaction was quick from rights groups who have long monitored a man alleged to have poured weapons into some of the world's bloodiest conflicts."It is a good day when the world's most notorious arms trafficker is put out of business and off the market for good," said Oistein Thorsen, a campaigner with Oxfam International."However, it is tragic that because we have no global treaty regulating the activities of arms dealers, many other unscrupulous dealers and brokers will continue to operate."The case revolved around a sophisticated US sting operation to corner Bout, a veteran of a shady international air freight business that specialized in African conflict zones.US agents posing as high-ranking members of Colombia's FARC guerrilla group, listed by Washington as a terrorist organization, told Bout at a 2008 meeting at a Siam Square hotel that they wanted to buy an arsenal of weapons.Among the...