Moscow, March 5 - RAPSI. A New York court has postponed the sentencing of convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout until March 28, a member of Bout’s defense team told RIA Novosti.
“U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin has moved Viktor Bout’s sentencing date to March 28 on his defense team’s request,” Andrei Garkusha said on Monday.
The sentencing was originally scheduled for March 12.
According to Garkusha, Bout’s lawyer Albert Dayan has asked the court to give him more time to prepare his remarks on the sentencing. Prosecutors have not yet determined the length of the prison term they would demand for Bout.
Bout, who has denied all charges against him, faces from 25 years to life in prison.
The 45-year-old former Russian military officer, known as the Merchant of Death, was arrested in Thailand in March 2008 during a sting operation led by U.S. agents and extradited to the United States in November 2010 after spending more than two and half years in Thai prisons.
On November 2 last year, the jury of the Federal District Court of New York unanimously found Bout guilty of conspiring to kill U.S. officials and citizens, of acquiring and intending to use anti-aircraft missiles and providing support to terrorists.
Bout has been recently transferred to a “general population” prison in Brooklyn after being held in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan since his extradition from Thailand 15 months ago.
“We have no complaints about Bout’s current conditions in the Brooklyn prison,” Garkusha said.