In 2008, DEA agents arrested Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in Bangkok, Thailand, during a sting operation in which agents posed as buyers for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, or FARC. After a delay of two years in extraditing Bout from Thailand, he was transferred to New York where he was charged in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. As noted in a story in the Moscow Times, in November 2011, Bout was officially convicted for conspiring to kill U.S. citizens and officials, as well as sell surface-to-air missiles and other weapons to the FARC, a foreign terrorist organization. Bout was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment. In 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Second Circuit affirmed Bout’s conviction.
Bout’s attorney informed the media at a press conference on Friday that Bout will not appeal his sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court. Bout’s lawyer said that his extradition to Russia is not currently possible.
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