Viktor Bout, a former Soviet Air Force officer who became known as the “Merchant of Death” for running what American officials have described as an international arms trafficking network, was found guilty on Wednesday of conspiring to sell antiaircraft missiles and other weapons to men he believed were members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
The verdict, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, was a rather prosaic end to nearly two decades spent in the margins of international terrorism and espionage; Mr. Bout has been accused of furnishing weapons to Al Qaeda and the Taliban and into civil wars in Africa, and was reputed to have a grasp on present-day Russian intelligence. His legend even inspired the 2005 film “Lord of War,”...