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Arms Control

Government Wants Life Sentence For 'Merchant Of Death' Viktor Bout

Ryan J. Reilly | April 5, 2012, 9:55AM

The feds want Viktor Bout -- the man they describe as one of the "the world's most successful and sophisticated arms traffickers" -- to spend the rest of his life in jail.

Bout, whose life inspired the movie Lord of War and earned him the nicknamed the "Merchant of Death," was found guilty of conspiring to kill U.S. citizens and officials, delivering anti-aircraft missiles and providing aid to a terrorist organization. He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 following a sting operation set up by Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents. He's set to be sentenced by a federal judge in New York at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Federal authorities called Bout "a businessman of the most dangerous order" and said in a court filing that Bout "remained ready, willing and able to provide a breathtaking arsenal of weapons -- including hundreds of surface-to-air missiles, machine-guns, and sniper rifles -- 10 million rounds of ammunition, and five tons of plastic explosives to men he believed represented FARC, a U.S.-and E.U.-designated foreign terrorist organization."

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Topics: Arms Control, DEA, Guns, Viktor Bout

Amir Hossein Ardebili

U.S. Imprisoned Iranian Engineer Secretly For Two Years Before Sentencing

Justin Elliott | December 15, 2009, 12:14PM

Meeting with undercover American agents and Amir Hossein Ardebili

In a case drawing criticism from outside lawyers, an Iranian engineer sentenced to prison Monday for violating arms control laws was lured to the nation of Georgia by American authorities for a fake arms deal, arrested, extradited to the U.S., and held in prison for two years -- including months in solitary confinement before his guilty plea last year -- all totally in secret, according to the Justice Department and media reports.

Export control lawyers told Politico's Laura Rozen the politically-charged case of Amir Hossein Ardebili -- which was under seal until this month -- is troubling for two reasons: first, he was an Iranian who never left Iran, nonetheless lured out of the country and targeted by U.S. law enforcement; and, second, that he was sentenced after two years of secret imprisonment.