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Viktor Bout to serve sentence in medium security prison Marion

Russian businessman Viktor Bout, who was sentenced in April by a U.S. court to 25 years in prison for conspiracy to smuggle weapons
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

NEW YORK, June 2 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian businessman Viktor Bout, who was sentenced in April by a U.S. court to 25 years in prison for conspiracy to smuggle weapons, will serve his sentence in the medium security prison Marion in Illinois, the representative of Bout’s defense team, Andrei Garkusha, told Itar-Tass. The Federal Bureau of Prisons of the United States has reconsidered its earlier decision to send the Russian to the maximum security prison Florence (Colorado). Garkusha said the date of Bout’s transfer Marion had not been announced.

Marion is located near the same-name town in the U.S. state of Illinois, 500 miles south of Chicago and is designed for a thousand prisoners, convicted of offenses related to trafficking in weapons and drugs, as well as for sexual offenses.

The decision to send Bout to Marion was taken at the request of his lawyer Albert Dayan.

"Prison conditions in Colorado are even worse than those in which Bout was kept in the block for especially dangerous criminals in Manhattan (from the moment of his extradition to the U.S. from Thailand). The execution of this decision will hinder the appellate process," Dayan said in a letter to federal judge Shira Scheindlin.

In February, Scheindlin ordered to improve conditions for Bout. He was transferred from the special block for especially dangerous criminals in Manhattan to a pre-trial detention center in Brooklyn, where he is now. As she read out the sentence, the judge promised to send to the Federal Bureau of Prisons a recommendation Bout be sent to serve the sentence in a common jail.

In April, 45-year-old Booth was found guilty in an American court of a conspiracy to smuggle weapons to the group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He pled not guilty.