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 20million 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. Moscow protested the arrest and extradition to the US at the time, calling them politically motivated.
