Comes after the Obama administration successfully lobbied Thailand into extraditing him here a year ago this month.
http://www.google.com/...
A shadowy Russian arms dealer was convicted Wednesday of seeking to make millions of dollars by selling heavy weaponry to a terror group so it could attack what prosecutors said he told his customers was a common enemy — U.S. forces helping the Colombian government.
A jury in federal court in Manhattan reached the verdict in the case against Viktor Bout after deliberating for about six hours over two days. He was convicted of conspiracy to kill Americans and U.S. officials, deliver anti-aircraft missiles and aid a terrorist organization.
Bout could face life in prison at his sentencing, which was scheduled for Feb. 8. He hugged one of his lawyers as he left court.
Viktor Bout was the real world cartoon evil arms dealer. He belonged as the villain of a Mission: Impossible movie.
Ex-Russian military, rumored KGB agent (if not in official capacity, then as an asset), served in Angola, speaks multiple languages. Loved cocaine, vodka, and Ukrainian prostitutes.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, went into business for himself, buying cargo planes and leftover Soviet arms caches. Put them together and he was able to ship lethal weapons in bulk to conflict zones all over the globe. A network of shell companies allowed him to hide his work.
Bout sold weapons to our worst enemies. Including, but not limited to, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Muammar Gaddafi, Shabaab in Somalia. He sold to genocidal armies all across Africa, which he saw as the real cash cow. Mobutu, Foday Sankoh, Jonas Savimbi, and most especially Charles Taylor of Liberia...often trading weapons straight up for blood diamonds mined by RUF slave labor in Sierra Leone.
The death toll incurred by his wares may well run into the hundreds of thousands.
During the first term of the Bush administration, even the United States was known to employ his services. Once hiring him to supply thousands of brand new AK-47s to the Iraqi police. The guns...went missing (paging Darryl Issa.)
http://www.pbs.org/...
But in 2008, the Drug Enforcement Agency launched a successful sting operation in Bangkok Thailand which, posing as members of the Colombian narco-terrorist group FARC, got Bout in a hotel room on record promising to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons, including advanced surface-to-air missiles, for the expressed purpose of helping FARC attack and kill Americans.
Whats even better is that the DEA earlier pulled the same 'missiles to FARC' trick on Bout's top illegal arms dealing rival Syrian Monzer al Kassar...who sold to Saddam Hussein, the Somali Aideed militia of 'Black Hawk Down' fame, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, and also to Oliver North during the Iran-Contra scandal. Kassar was convicted in a DC court two years ago and is now serving life without parole.
For two years, Bout's extradition was stonewalled, in large part due to diplomatic pressure from Moscow who feared he would 'flip' and expose any and all Russian government involvement in his dealings. At one point it looked like he may never be extradited and would indeed walk out of jail a free man.
But after intense and effective diplomatic pressure from the Obama administration, last year his extradition was approved and within minutes he was whisked out of his jail cell and put on a Gulfstream jet to face trial in New York City.
So, one year after extraditing this KGB-tied 'Merchant of Death' with connections to terrorists and dictators all over the globe. He was today frogmarched out of a civilian federal courthouse in New York City, convicted on all four charges, and facing life in prison. No assault team of mercenaries to break him out of custody a la 'Mission Impossible 3' no terrorist hostage takings overseas to gain his release, no military brinksmanship with Russia to have him freed from Guantanamo.
Just a bloated criminal shell, forgotten and abandoned by his would-be clients. Case closed.
Good job to the DOJ for prosecuting him, the State Department for extraditing him, and all those intelligence and law enforcement professionals who tracked him down and caught him.