MOSCOW, April 12 - RAPSI. The new team of lawyers representing alleged arms dealer Viktor Bout do not plan to replace his previous US attorney Albert Dayan at this stage, his new lawyer Alexei Binetsky told a news conference on Friday.

He said Dayan will remain on the team unless Bout or his wife, Alla, says that they do not want to work with him any longer. They have not yet made any statements in this regard.Dayan, who represented Bout in a New York court, filed an appeal contesting the April 2012 conviction in January.The appeal is under consideration.

Bout was convicted in November 2011 of conspiracy to murder US nationals, including military officers and employees, and to sell millions of dollars' worth of weapons, including hundreds of portable surface-to-air missiles and over 20,000 AK-47s, to the Colombian rebel group FARC.

He has consistently denied the charges against him and called the trial politically motivated. Russia attempted to have Bout extradited from the United States in line with the 1983 Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, but without success.

Bout's story gained popular notoriety through the success of the Hollywood blockbuster Lord of War, a story that is said to be loosely based on Bout's life.