在线英语听力室

VOA标准英语2011--US Trial of Alleged Arms Dealer Opens in

时间:2011-10-15 05:39:14

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号:tingroom,领取免费英语资料大礼包。

(单词翻译)

US Trial of Alleged1 Arms Dealer2 Opens in New York

The trial of a former Soviet3 Air Force officer and alleged international arms dealer dubbed4 a "merchant of death" by security experts is underway in New York.
Police in Thailand arrested Russian businessman Viktor Bout5 in 2008. His trial in New York opened with prosecutors7 and defense8 lawyers painting sharply different pictures of the former Soviet military officer.
Bout is accused of conspiring9 to sell thousands of military-grade weapons. including surface-to-air-missiles, explosives, and grenades.
Federal prosecutor6 Brendan McGuire told the court that Bout had quote, "jumped at the opportunity" to make millions selling arms to FARC, a Colombian rebel organization that he believed would use them, in part, to shoot down U.S. helicopters. He alleged that Bout had said Americans were his enemies too.
Federal agent William S. Brown testified Bout's arrest in Thailand came after he met with undercover agents posing as members of FARC, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.
Bout maintains his innocence10 and says he was entrapped11. He was extradited to the U.S. after a lengthy12 court battle.
Bout's attorney, Albert Dayan, told the court his client was lured13 to the meeting on the hopes of selling two cargo14 airplanes he owned. Dayan said Bout was never an arms dealer, only a transporter, and that he only promised to include weapons to promote the airplane sale.
Douglas Farah is co-author of Merchant of Death, a book that helped bring Bout to wide attention. He says Bout was the most successful illegal weapons trafficker ever, often arming both sides of African conflicts in the 1990s.
"…Fueling the wars around Africa, then eventually Afghanistan and then into Latin America and elsewhere," said Farah. "I think what's historic about his arrest is that it was one of the first times, and particularly the Drug Enforcement Administration went after someone who was tangentially15 linked to narcotics16, but fundamentally accused of violating weapons embargoes17 and gross human rights abuses that flowed from those weapons sales."
A U.N. Security Council resolution from 2004 asked member states to refuse Viktor Bout transit18 and to freeze his assets. Kathi Austin is with the Conflict Awareness19 Network, a group that has tracked Bout for a long time.
"What's alarming to me is that Viktor Bout has actually trafficked weapons before into conflict areas, he's broken U.S. domestic law, he has actually trafficked and broken other laws and has violated U.N. sanctions, and Viktor Bout is not being held accountable for those particular real crimes, where there were real victims," said Austin.
Bout's wife, Alla, spoke20 to reporters after the trial opened. Asked if her husband was capable of the crimes he is accused of, she called him a very talented "maverick21" businessman.
"So, he can compromise on some issues. I cannot judge what really happened in this case, but as I know him very well, from the point of view of morals, the charges are absurd," said Alla Bout.
Bout faces life in prison if convicted on the four charges, which include conspiracy22 to kill Americans and to provide material support to a terrorist organization.


分享到:

Error Warning!

出错了

Error page: /mobile/?aid=158847&mid=3
Error infos: Got error 28 from storage engine
Error sql: select `l`.`tag`,`l`.`index`,`l`.`level_id`,`b`.`id`,`b`.`word`,`b`.`spell`,`b`.`explain`,`b`.`sentence`,`b`.`src` from `new_wordtaglist` `l` left join `new_word_base` `b` on `l`.`tag`=`b`.`word` where `l`.`arc_id`='158847' and `l`.`level_id`>='' group by `b`.`word` order by `l`.`index` asc

本文本内容来源于互联网抓取和网友提交,仅供参考,部分栏目没有内容,如果您有更合适的内容,欢迎 点击提交 分享给大家。