Federal prosecutors and defense lawyers for imprisoned arms dealer Viktor Bout squared off in a federal appeals court in New York on Wednesday, with government lawyers arguing the Russian suspect was targeted as a “clear and present danger” because of his weapons background.
Bout’s lawyer, Albert Y. Dayan, insisted during arguments before the three-judge panel that Bout had abandoned his involvement in the weapons trade by the time U.S. drug agents targeted him in 2008.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Anjan Sahni said that even after the American sting operation began, Bout was still trying to cement other international arms deals, communicating by Internet with potential clients in Tanzania and Libya, then still headed by now-ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Even as Dayan, Bout’s long-time American lawyer, has pressed an appeal to scuttle Bout’s 25-year prison term for his 2011 conspiracy conviction, new lawyers are taking up the Russian’s case.
Alexey Binetsky, a Moscow-based attorney has recently been in the U.S., meeting with Bout at the federal medium-security prison where he is housed in Marion, Ill. Binetsky recently said in Washington that he was looking into other options in case the appeal fails, including trying to introduce new evidence backing a motion for a new trial.
Dayan tried that tactic after Bout’s conviction in Nov. 2011, arguing a juror was tainted by viewing a film loosely based on Bout, but the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Schira Scheindlin, rejected the defense team’s arguments.
–AP, “The U.S. government targeted a notorious Russian arms dealer dubbed the Merchant of Death because he was “a clear and present danger” to Americans and a national security threat, a prosecutor told a federal appeals court Thursday.”