Federal prosecutors asked a judge overseeing the Viktor Bout case to sentence the Russian arms dealer to life imprisonment. It would be the maximum penalty for his conviction last November on four conspiracy counts. Prosecutors said Bout displayed “an exceptional level of expertise in the illegal weapons business” and described him as a prime example of transnational threats “willing to function as a bridge between arms suppliers and organizations seeking to inflict mass violence.”

Bout has long scoffed at his portrayal in “Merchant of Death” and other accounts as a veteran arms trafficker. But prosecutors were equally caustic about Bout’s denials. “Although Bout has often described himself as nothing more than a businessman, he was a businessman of the most dangerous order,” the prosecution team wrote in 23-page sentencing memorandum delivered to the judge on Friday. They said that Bout’s offer to deliver a cornucopia of weapons — more than 700 surface-to-air missiles, 10 million rounds of ammo, rifles, machine guns and five tons of plastic explosives — to U.S. informants masking as South American terrorists was clear evidence of his arms prowess.

“Bout was eager to be all things,” they wrote. “A one-stop arms supplier, transporter, military instructor, and money launderer — roles from which he expected to reap cash dividends.”

Bout’s lawyer, Albert Y. Dayan, asked trial judge Shira A. Scheindlin, to refrain from sentencing Bout because of what he described as the government’s overzealous prosecution.

Bout is due to be sentenced on Thursday. He faces a minimum of 25 years in prison up to life.

—AP, “A Russian arms dealer convicted of conspiring to sell weapons to South American terrorists is a “businessman of the most dangerous order” and should be sentenced to life in prison, federal prosecutors argued Friday.”

—New York Times, “Federal prosecutors in Manhattan asked a judge on Friday to impose a life sentence on Viktor Bout, a former Soviet military officer convicted in November in an arms trafficking and terrorism conspiracy, a court filing shows.”