NEW-YORK, June 8 - RAPSI. Russian citizen Viktor Bout is now being held in Oklahoma City's transit prison. He was transferred there from a Brooklyn prison on Wednesday, Andrei Garkusha, Bout's defense representative, told RIA Novosti on Friday.
"Bout is in the Oklahoma City prison. It is a transit point via which almost all prisoners transferred to permanent detention facilities have to go through. It's sort of like a holding cell," Garkusha said.
Bout, who was arrested in Thailand and convicted in the United States, was transferred to New York on Wednesday without any preliminary notification. Marion prison, a medium security facility in Illinois, will be his permanent detention facility.
"Prisoners are kept in transit prisons from several days up to six weeks, depending on how long it takes for the group being transferred to a particular prison to be brought together," the defenses representative said.
Bout has been sentenced to 25 years in prison by the New York Federal Court for planning to sell arms to the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces. The U.S. agents who dealt with Bout presented themselves as commanders. Bout has denied the charges against him.
Bout's family and defense requested the court to transfer him to a Fort Dix prison in New Jersey, where another Russian citizen, Konstantin Yaroshenko is being held. Yaroshenko was sentenced to 20 years in prison for colluding in the smuggling of a cocaine shipment to the United States. He also maintains his innocence.