Convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout won a legal victory this week when a federal judge ordered prison officials to move him out of solitary confinement in the Manhattan jail where he awaits sentencing. U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said Friday that Bout should be moved to the general population at the Metropolitan Detention Center. Bout’s lawyer had complained that the Russian prisoner was being victimized by federal authorities after his conviction last November on four counts of conspiracy. Scheindlin essentially agreed, noting that Bout appeared to be treated more harshly in prison than Wadih el-Hage, a close aide to Osama bin Laden who was convicted in the 1998 terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Bout faces sentencing next month.
—Wall Street Journal, “A suspected Russian arms dealer convicted last year in a conspiracy to sell surface-to-air missiles should be held in less restrictive conditions while awaiting sentencing, a federal judge has ruled.”
—Courthouse News Service, “A Russian national, Bout was the subject of the nonfiction book “Merchant of Death,” and allegedly inspired the Hollywood movie “The Lord of War.” For years, he was suspected of arming dictators, despots and warring factions in the Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone and other conflict zones around the world.”