On Nov. 2, 2011, Bout was found guilty of four charges including conspiring to kill US officials and citizens by agreeing to aid an anti-American group designated by the US government as terrorists.  He was extradited to the US in late 2010, following his arrest during an undercover operation in Thailand. On March 6, 2008, Bout and former colleague Andrew Smulian, met two undercover US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents posing as members of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). At the Bangkok meeting,  Bout agreed to provide a wide array of weapons to FARC, including anti-aircraft missiles. He also offered to sell them two cargo planes for arms deliveries, and to train guerrillas. DEA agents secretly recorded the meeting with Bout and Smulian, and the recording was among the evidence used in Bout’s trial. Bout was arrested immediately after the Bangkok meeting.  Smulian, convicted on similar charges, agreed to testify for the prosecution in the hopes of a more lenient sentence.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has reacted loudly against the verdict against Bout. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich says the US violated international standards in its treatment of Bout . The ministry believes that Bout was held in "unjustifiably harsh detention conditions" and was subjected to "controversial methods of a physical and psychological nature that contravene existing international rights standards," Lukashevich  said in a press statement published on the Ministry’s web site.  The Russian government has vowed to bring Bout back to Russia.
Bout’s wife Alla recently told an Emirati tabloid that the “Lord of War” ruined Bout’s reputation, and while it is good entertainment, it has nothing to do with her husband.. She said Bout only shipped “ostriches and bathroom tiles” through his cargo business in Sharjah, not weapons. Mrs. Bout had similar comments about the book, “Merchant of Death,” written by investigative journalists Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun. She blamed the authors and the DEA, for giving the world the “wrong impression” of Bout.
The reading of Bout’s sentence is scheduled for Feb. 8, 2012, when he will receive a sentence between 25 years and life in prison.
