NEW YORK - Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer caught in an undercover sting by US agents posing as Colombian guerrillas seeking weapons, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday by a US judge in New York.
Bout, who was the subject of a book titled "Merchant of Death," was arrested in Bangkok in 2008 after a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting operation and extradited to New York in November 2010 to face trial.He was convicted by a Manhattan federal court jury last fall after a three-week trial on charges he agreed to sell arms to people he thought were Colombian militants intent on attacking American soldiers.
