BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Three key figures from Argentina's "Dirty War" got hefty jail terms for the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, an Argentine court ruled on Thursday.

The missing children -- stolen from their parents and illegally adopted, often by military families --  are one of the most painful legacies of the crackdown on leftist dissent in which rights groups say up to 30,000 people were killed.

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Just over 100 of the children have discovered their true identities, but many families are still searching more than three decades later. Activists say there could be several hundred more individuals who do not know they were taken as babies from their parents.

"This is what we were seeking. We never wanted revenge, we were never hateful, we didn't ask for anything more than justice and justice has been done," an elderly man who identified himself as Francisco Madariaga's grandfather told local television. 

More photos: Tears flow as 'stolen babies' trial comes to an end

The sentences in the case known as "The Systematic Plan" investigated the theft and illegal adoption of 34 of the stolen infants. 

The 11 defendants included former junta leaders Jorge Rafael Videla, 86, and Reynaldo Bignone, 84, and ex-navy officer Jorge Acosta, 71, -- known as The Tiger. They are already serving life sentences for previous human rights convictions. 

Argentine dictators go on trial for baby thefts

Videla was sentenced to 50 years in prison as the architect of the plan, while Acosta got 30 years and Bignone got 15. The other defendants were also ordered to serve sentences of various lengths. 

Videla, who is unrepentant about rights abuses committed by the state, described himself as a "political prisoner" during the trial and said any abductions that did take place were not part of a systematic plan. 

"The women giving birth, who I respect as mothers, were militants who were active in the machine of terror," the former dictator said in his closing remarks. "Many used their unborn children as human shields." 

The baby thefts set Argentina's 1976-1983 regime apart from all the other juntas that ruled in Latin America at the time. Videla other military and police officials were determined to remove any trace of the armed leftist guerrilla movement they said threatened the country's future.

"This is an historic day. Today legal justice has been made real — never again the justice of one's own hands, which the repressors were known for," prominent rights activist Tati Almeida said outside the courthouse, where a jubilant crowd watched on a big screen and cheered each sentence.

500 babies stolen?
Witnesses included former U.S. diplomat Elliot Abrams. He was called to testify after a long-classified memo describing his secret meeting with Argentina's ambassador was made public at the request of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a human rights group whose evidence-gathering efforts were key to the trial. 

Abrams testified from Washington that he secretly urged Bignone to reveal the stolen babies' identities as a way to smooth Argentina's return to democracy. 

"We knew that it wasn't just one or two children," Abrams testified, suggesting that there must have been some sort of directive from a high level official — "a plan, because there were many people who were being murdered or jailed." 

No reconciliation effort was made. Instead, Bignone ordered the military to destroy evidence of "dirty war" activities, and the junta denied any knowledge of baby thefts, let alone responsibility for the disappearances of political prisoners. 

The U.S. government also revealed little of what it knew as the junta's death squads were eliminating opponents. 

The Grandmothers group has since used DNA evidence to help 106 people who were stolen from prisoners as babies recover their true identities, and 26 of these cases were part of this trial. Many were raised by military officials or their allies, who falsified their birth names, trying to remove any hint of their leftist origins. 

UK slams Argentina 'harassment' over Falklands

The rights group estimates as many as 500 babies could have been stolen in all, but the destruction of documents and passage of time make it impossible to know for sure. 

The trial featured gut-wrenching testimony from grandmothers and other relatives who searched inconsolably for their missing relatives, and from people who learned as young adults that they were raised by the very people involved in the disappearance of their birth parents. 

Six others were convicted and sentenced by the three-judge panel on Thursday: former Adm. Antonio Vanek, 40 years; former Gen. Santiago Omar Riveros, 20; former navy prefect Juan Antonio Azic, 14; and Dr. Jorge Magnacco, who witnesses said handled some of the births, 10. 

Former Capt. Victor Gallo and his ex-wife Susana Colombo, were sentenced to 15 and five years in jail, respectively. Their adopted son, Francisco Madariaga, testified against them and said he hoped their sentences would set an example. 

Retired Adm. Ruben Omar Franco and a former intelligence agent, Eduardo Ruffo, were absolved. 

According to Argentine judicial procedure, the basis for the convictions and sentences won't be revealed until Sept. 17, said the president of the judicial tribunal, Maria del Carmen Roqueta. 

Reuters and The Associate Press contributed to this report. 

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BEIJING – While Ai Weiwei didn’t get his day in court Wednesday, he did get his case heard.

The Chinese artist and social activist was noticeably absent from opening arguments at a Beijing courtroom after he was warned off by police. Instead, Ai, 54, stayed home at his studio while his wife, Lu Qing, represented their design company, Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., with a team of lawyers.

Ai and his wife are challenging a ruling by the tax office that rejected their appeal against a steep fine imposed for alleged tax evasion, a charge roundly rejected as false and trumped up by Ai and his supporters.

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NBC News spoke to Ai Weiwei by phone late Wednesday afternoon, but he could not comment on how legal proceedings had gone.

The government previously ordered Ai’s company to pay a staggering 15 million yuan ($2.4 million) in alleged back taxes and additional fines. Surprisingly, Ai raised the money needed to pay an 8.45 million yuan ($1.3 million) bond needed to contest the tax charges through donations and contributions from around 30,000 supporters after he called for assistance through social media, a favored tool of his and other activists in China.

Stunts like these as well as his pokes at authority – see the photo he posted yesterday on Twitter sporting a too-tight Chinese police uniform – anger authorities who view Ai as a troublemaker. 

In April 2011, Ai was detained without charge during a national roundup of activists and dissidents following the many pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East.

It was only after his 81-day detention that tax-evasion charges against Ai and his company were made, lending credence to claims made by human rights watchers and Ai supporters that the move was retaliation by the government.

The case against Ai has been shrouded in secrecy due to the government’s unwillingness, or inability, to reveal any original tax documents as evidence of tax evasion they purport to have.

A hearing held last July during which the government’s evidence would ostensibly have been revealed was closed and the company’s lawyers were barred from attending, a decision Ai’s lawyers claim was illegal.

It is a sensitive time politically in China as President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are poised to step down later this year. Despite the political drama swirling around the fleeing of dissident Chen Guangcheng to the United States and the ongoing Bo Xilai scandal, Beijing desperately wants to make the transition peaceful and is doing everything possible this year to mitigate sensitive stories.

Yet, as has sometimes proven the case when it comes to Ai, attempts to muzzle or contain him can backfire.

While Beijing police have discouraged local dissidents from going to the courthouse to support Ai, security was said to be intense around the court with a ring of police cars around it and officers telling foreign press to stay away as well. Still, supporters of Ai were seen outside holding small signs that said “Ai Weiwei, we love you” and “No justice without a fight.”

Meanwhile, the detention of Ai’s legal consultant, Liu Xiaoyuan, by security forces Tuesday outraged Ai, who announced it on Twitter and called for Liu’s immediate release. Ai told NBC News that Liu’s phone had been turned off and that he had been “taken away to the countryside for some sort of treatment by the police.”

Additionally, Ai has also been using Twitter to call attention to the heavy police presence outside his home. He pointed to a bust up at his home yesterday when someone in his studio took a photo of what Ai described as “30-40 police cars.” Ai alleges that police rushed the photographer to grab the camera, causing some minor scratches and bruises which were tweeted here.

As part of his conditional release late last year, Ai’s travel rights were taken away and he was told to refrain from criticism of the government through social media.

Friday was supposed to be the day those restrictions would be lifted, but in lieu of Ai’s continued defiance, it is hard to believe local authorities won’t extend these restraints in order to rein him in. 

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Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani was disqualified by the country's top court and declared ineligible to hold office Tuesday.

On April 26, judges convicted Gilani in contempt of court proceedings for refusing to open a corruption probe against President Asif Ali Zardari. The court said Tuesday that Gilani should not have held office since that verdict was announced.

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The April ruling was previously questioned by the speaker of the National Assembly, who decided that the court order did not cast any doubt on the premier's right to hold office.

But the speaker's decision was struck down Tuesday by a bench of judges headed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry.

After his contempt of court conviction in April, Prime Minister Gilani had 30 days within which he could file an appeal. He failed to do so, arguing that the President enjoyed immunity from prosecution -- but his failure to file an appeal rendered the earlier conviction final, and disqualifed him from office.

Gilani had the opportunity to challenge the conviction legally, but chose instead to stand on principle. 

"Since no appeal was filed (against the April 26 conviction) ... therefore Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani stands disqualifed as a member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (parliament)," Chaudhry said in a packed courtroom, according to Reuters.

"He has also ceased to be the prime minister of Pakistan ... the office of the prime minister stands vacant," the judge added.

Gilani's lawyer, Fawad Chaudhry, told The Associated Press that only parliament could dismiss the prime minister. 

The Supreme Court ruling came in response to petitions filed against Gilani for not standing down after the conviction. 

Emergency meetings
In their written order Tuesday, judges reminded Zardari that he is "required to take necessary steps under the Constitution to ensure continuation of the democratic process."

Senior leaders of Gilani's party -- the PPP (Pakistan People's Party) -- were reportedly in emergency meetings Tuesday. The party does enjoy a majority in parliament to elect their chosen successor.

The civilian government has been lurching from crisis to crisis for the majority of the last year, in what many saw as a power struggle between the powerful army, judiciary, and government.

Tuesday's action is likely to throw the government into further turmoil, as they struggle to become the first civilian government to complete a full five-year term before the scheduled elections in February 2013. The instability could lead to early elections being called. 

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pakistani leaders are so consumed with keeping their government stable and remaining in power, they're unable to devote the necessary attention nor make any bold decisions to re-engage with the U.S. and get the alliance back on track.

The overland NATO supply lines which run through Pakistan have been closed since November, shuttered in protest about a U.S. cross-border strike in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed.

A U.S. team recently spent weeks in Pakistan, negotiating new rates to re-open those supply lines, but left without any resolution. 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Federal attorneys today filed a civil lawsuit that seeks to wrest a tyrannosaur skeleton valued at more than $1 million away from its sellers and return it to the Mongolian government.

The skeleton was sold at a New York auction last month for $1.05 million to an unidentified buyer, even though a federal district judge in Texas issued a restraining order to hold up the sale. The auction house behind the offering, Texas-based Heritage Auctions, made the sale contingent on the outcome of Mongolia's court challenge — and since then, the skeleton has been held in legal limbo.

Earlier this month, a panel of paleontologists declared that the skeleton represented a Tyrannosaurus bataar, also known as a Tarbosaurus bataar, which was probably smuggled out of Mongolia sometime in the past 15 years or so. Today's complaint, filed by the U.S. attorney for Manhattan in New York federal district court, follows up on that determination and lays out the authorities' version of a tangled tyrannosaur tale.

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"The skeletal remains of this dinosaur are of tremendous cultural and historical significance to the people of Mongolia, and provide a connection to the country's prehistoric past," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. "When the skeleton was allegedly looted, a piece of the country's natural history was stolen with it, and we look forward to returning it to its rightful place."

Mongolia has had laws on the books forbidding the export of dinosaur fossils since 1924. The complaint says the nearly complete skeleton was brought into the United States illegally, and thus should be forfeited by the sellers and returned to Mongolia.

James Hayes, a special agent-in-charge for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, said the complaint alleges that "criminal smugglers misrepresented this fossil to customs officials."

When the skeleton was imported into the United States from Britain in 2010, the country of origin was listed as Britain — even though, according to the paleontologists, nearly complete tyrannosaur skeletons of this type have been found only in Mongolia. The experts cited a dozen features of the bones, as well as their light color and even the dirt stuck in the cracks in the fossils, as characteristic of Tyrannosaurus bataar rather than the larger T. rex or other members of the tyrannosaur tribe.

Federal attorneys said that the importers set the skeleton's value at $15,000, but that a value of $950,000 to $1.5 million was listed in this year's auction catalog. They also said the 8-foot-tall (2.4-meter-tall), 24-foot-long (7.3-meter-long) skeleton was incorrectly listed on customs forms as consisting of assorted fossilized reptiles and skulls.

The complaint names Florida Fossils as the ultimate consignee for the imported goods, and notes that the company was owned at the time of importation by Eric Prokopi. The skeleton was shipped from Florida to Texas, and then on to New York in preparation for the May 20 sale. Soon after word spread that a million-dollar tyrannosaur was coming up for auction, representatives of the Mongolian government became interested and sought unsuccessfully to stop the sale.

The dinosaur skeleton is currently in the custody of Cadogan Tate Fine Art in Sunnyside, N.Y. In the weeks since the controversial sale took place, the auction house has let paleontologists and representatives of the Mongolian government examine the fossil.

"I thank and applaud the United States Attorney's office in this action to recover the Tyrannosaurus bataar, an important piece of the cultural heritage of the Mongolian people," Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj was quoted as saying in the U.S. government's news release about the case. "Cultural looting and profiteering cannot be tolerated anywhere, and this cooperation between our governments is a large step forward to stopping it."

My efforts to contact Prokopi today were unsuccessful, but representatives of Heritage Auctions issued this statement from the company's co-chairman, Jim Halperin:

"We auctioned the Tyrannosaurus bataar conditionally, subject to future court rulings, so this matter is now in the hands of lawyers and politicians. We believe our consignor purchased fossils in good faith, then spent a year of his life and considerable expense identifying, restoring, mounting and preparing what had previously been a much less valuable matrix of unassembled, underlying bones. We sincerely hope there will be a just and fair outcome for all parties."

More about the tyrannosaur:

• May 18: Auction stirs up a tussle over tyrannosaur
• May 21: Despite challenge, fossil sells for $1 million
• May 24: Auctioned dino skeleton believed to be smuggled
• June 8: Experts say tyrannosaur is definitely from Mongolia

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Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Updated at 7:20 p.m. ET: CAIRO - Egypt's ousted ruler Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison Saturday for complicity in the killings of protesters who eventually overthrew him. He could have received the death penalty.

Presiding judge Ahmed Refaat also sentenced his former interior minister, Habib el-Adli, to life in prison on the same charge. But Mubarak's two sons -- Gamal and Alaa -- were acquitted on corruption charges.   

The mixed ruling set off street protests and by nightfall, a large crowd of up to 10,000 was back in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the uprising, to vent anger over the acquittals. Similar protesters were held in other cities, including the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and Suez on the Red Sea.

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On Sunday morning, dozens of young Egyptians stormed into the campaign headquarters of presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq for the Fayoum area south of Cairo on Sunday, the state's Al-Ahram news website reported.

All the headquarters contents including furniture and computer devices were destroyed, Al-Ahram online said. It was the second attack on Shafiq's headquarters in few days.

Shafiq was the last prime minister of deposed president Hosni Mubarak and his success in getting through to a second round of Egypt's presidential election has angered opponents who see him as a symbol of a regime that they took to the streets to oust in mass protests.

Shafiq on Saturday said Mubarak's sentence proved no one was above the law.

"Those rulings certainly disprove any claims that a presidential candidate can reproduce a ruling system that has ended," he said, responding to critics who say Shafiq would revive the old order.

Protesters disagreed.

"Justice was not served," said Ramadan Ahmed, whose son was killed on Jan. 28, the bloodiest day of last year's uprising. "This is a sham," he said outside the courthouse.

Protesters chanted: "A farce a farce, this trial is a farce" and "The people want execution of the murderer."

NBC News, citing state TV, said Mubarak was taken to Tora prison after the court hearing. Egypt TV quoted unidentified medical sources as saying Mubarak had suffered a health crisis as he arrived at the prison and was being treated in the helicopter that transported him and then in the prison hospital. 

The Ahram Online newspaper reported Saturday Mubarak, wearing sunglasses, a beige top and black trousers, was wheeled in to the police academy for the hearing as he lay on a stretcher.

Judge: 30 years of tyranny
The judge said the uprising ended 30 years of tyranny, saying the people who protested against poverty and oppression were peaceful, according to the newspaper.

Mubarak, 84, was acquitted of the graft charges he faced. His life sentence -- which in Egypt typically is 25 years but in Mubarak's case really means the rest of his life -- was for failing to prevent the killing of 900 protesters.

Mubarak's ex-security chief, Habib el-Adly, also was convicted of complicity in the killings and received a life sentence.

A statement issued by the Muslim Brotherhood's presidential campaign team called for a retrial.

"The public prosecutor did not carry out its full duty in gathering adequate evidence to convict the accused for killing protesters," said Yasser Ali, official spokesman for the Mohamed Mursi campaign. 

Others also expressed discontent.

"Initial, fleeting satisfaction, followed by disappointment, and then anger," said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, in a message on Twitter. 

"I'd think this verdict would spur greater consensus between Islamists ... and liberals," he added.

'Filled with anger'
Nader Bakkar, the spokesman of Al-Nour Salafist Party, said in a tweet translated by Ahram Online that Egyptians were "filled with anger and disappointment."

But some reacted with joy at the news.

Soha Saeed, the wife of one of about 850 people killed in the street revolt that toppled Mubarak on Feb. 11, 2011, shouted: "I'm so happy. I'm so happy."  

Can voters force candidates to compromise in Egypt run-off?

Few Egyptians expected Mubarak would go to the gallows, even if some thought that was what he deserved. Protesters have often hung his effigy from lamp posts since he fell on February 11, 2011. 

Runoff could take Egypt's voters on one of two very different paths

NBC News' Charlene Gubash, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Updated at 9.10 a.m ET: An explosion at a school in Italy Saturday killed a teenage girl and injured several others, according to reports and officials.

The blast happened at 7:45 a.m. at a school in Brindisi as students were waiting to go inside, NBC News reported.

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The high school, which is opposite a court in the city, is named after the slain anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and his wife, Francesca Morvillo, a judge who was also killed in the 1992 bombing in Sicily by Cosa Nostra. 

One of the wounded students, a girl who was walking alongside the victim outside the school in Brindisi, was reported in critical condition after surgery.

Officials said at least seven students were injured, but some news reports put the figure at 10. 

Brindisi's Perrino hospital, where the wounded were taken, declined to give out information by phone. 

Dr. Paola Ciannamea, a Perrino physician who helped treat the injured at the hospital, told reporters there that one of the injured was a teenage girl who was in grave but stable condition after surgery.

She added that plastic surgery was still being performed on some of the other injured, who suffered burns in the blast. 

No claim of responsibility
An unidentified hospital official, briefing reporters there, said the critically injured student was in stable condition after surgery and that several of the injured students had suffered burns and is undergoing plastic surgery. 

There were no immediate claims of responsibility. 

Italy has been marking the 20th anniversary of the Sicilian highway attack, but it was unclear if there was an organized crime link to Saturday's explosion. 

In Brindisi, local civil protection agency official Fabiano Amati said a female student died of her wounds after being taken to a hospital and at least seven other students were hospitalized. 

Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, in charge of domestic security, said she was "struck" by the fact that the school was named after the slain hero and his wife, but she cautioned that investigators at that point "have no elements" to blame the school attack on organized crime. 

"It's not the usual (method) for the Mafia," she told Sky television in a phone interview. The Sicilian-based Cosa Nostra usually targets specific figures, such as judges, prosecutors, turncoats or rival mobsters in attacks, and not civilian targets such as schools. 

"The big problem now is to get intelligence" on the attack, said Cancellieri. She added that she had spoken by phone with Italian Premier Mario Monti, in the United States for the G-8 summit. 

Outside the school, textbooks, their pages flipping in a breeze, notebooks and a backpack littered the street near where the bomb exploded. At the sound of the blast, students already inside the building ran outside of the school to see what happened. 

Officials initially said the device was in a trash bin outside the Morvillo-Falcone school, but later the ANSA news agency, reporting from Brindisi, said the device, consisting of three cooking-gas canisters, a detonator and possibly a timer, had been placed on a low wall ringing the school. The wall was damaged and charred from the blast. 

Public high schools in Italy hold classes on Saturday mornings. 

Specializes in fashion, social services
A school official, Valeria Vitale, told Sky that most of the pupils were girls. The school specializes in training for jobs in fashion and social services, she said. 

The bombing also follows a number of attacks against Italian officials and government or public buildings by a group of anarchists, which prompted authorities to assign bodyguards for 550 individuals and deploy 16,000 law enforcement officers nationwide. 

Minister Cancellieri indicated that after the school blast, authorities' sense of what could be a possible target had been tested. 

"Anything now could be a 'sensitive' target," she said. 

Austerity measures, spending cuts and new and higher taxes, all part of economist Monti's plan to save Italy from succumbing to the debt crisis roiling Greece, have angered many citizens, and social tensions have ratcheted up. 

"The economic crisis doesn't help," Cancellieri said, referring to the tensions. 

Brindisi is a lively port town in Puglia, the region in the southeastern "heel" of the Italian boot-shaped peninsula. An organized crime syndicate known as the Sacred United Crown, has been traditionally active there, but crackdowns have been widely considered by authorities to have lessened the organization's power in the region.

The Associated Press and NBC News' Claudio Lavanga contributed to this report.

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A man identified as the older brother of one of the victims of Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik threw a shoe at him during his trial Friday, the first time the proceeding has been interrupted by a public outburst. 

"Go to hell, go to hell, you killed my brother," the man, who was seated in the second row of the public gallery, screamed as he threw the shoe at Breivik from a few yards away, newspaper VG reported on its website.  

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The shoe missed Breivik but struck his co-defense lawyer, Vibeke Hein Baera, who was seated closest to the public gallery, during the presentation of an autopsy report. 

"Luckily, it was just a shoe," Hein Baera told the AFP news agency after the incident.

Norwegian media said the man was a brother of one of the victims of Breivik's rampage, but his name was not immediately available. He was removed from the courtroom by police. 

"Some spectators were uncomfortable. Some started crying. Many clapped their hands," Swedish journalist Bjoern Lindahl said, according to the Press Association news agency, which added that the incident contrasted with the usual "polite atmosphere" in the court.

The incident came during a week of harrowing testimony from survivors of Breivik's rampage across the small island of Utoeya last July, where the ruling Labor Party was holding a youth camp. He killed 69 people there, many of them teenagers. 

Breivik has listened calmly to the descriptions of his killings and shown hardly any emotion, except when hearing descriptions about how he was said to have let out "cries of joy" and laughed while shooting, which he has denied. 

Breivik has admitted the killings, but denies criminal responsibility. He says he was defending Norwegian ethnic purity from Muslim immigration and the multiculturalism backed by the Labor Party. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Moscow on Friday slammed the 25-year prison sentenced imposed on Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout by a U.S. court, saying repatriating the man known as the “Merchant of Death” would be “one of our top priorities in Russian-American relations.”

Bout was caught in an undercover sting in Bangkok in 2008 by U.S. agents posing as Colombian guerrillas seeking weapons and later extradited to New York.

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He was convicted on two counts of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and officers of the United States and one count each of conspiracy to sell anti-aircraft missiles and providing material support to a terrorist organization.

The judge said Thursday that sentencing guidelines called for a life sentence, which prosecutors requested, but said the fact that Bout's conduct was a result of a government sting operation was a mitigating factor despite his long history of arms dealing.

Russia 'not seeking revenge'
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that he would discuss the sentence with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to Russia’s RIA Novosti news service.

“In this situation we are not seeking revenge, but want to help Viktor Bout. We are not proceeding by a desire to take revenge at any price, but by the desire to enforce the rights of our compatriot. We will actively support the appeal that Bout’s lawyers are going to file and will strive for his repatriation,” he added.

In a statement Russia’s foreign ministry said it would “take whatever action necessary to repatriate Viktor Bout back to his Motherland by any means within international law,” RIA Novosti reported.

“This issue will, without doubt, be one of our top priorities in Russian-American relations," it added.

"In spite of the unreliability of the evidence, the illegal character of his arrest involving the participation of U.S. special service agents in Thailand and the subsequent extradition, American legal officials, having carried out a political order, ignored the arguments of lawyers and numerous appeals from all levels in defense of this Russian citizen," ministry statement said.

"Long before the sentence was given to Bout, the authorities declared him the 'Merchant of Death' and almost an international terrorist, but this accusation was based exclusively on his imputed 'criminal intent,’” it said.

NY judge gives Merchant of Death 25 years

The statement, as quoted by RIA Novosti, alleged that an attempt was made to force Bout to admit he was guilty “by creating unbearable conditions for detention, by both physical and psychological means. The absolutely unacceptable campaign by the American media was aimed at influencing the jury and the judicial process in the 'right direction.'"

Reputed $6 billion fortune
In court for the sentencing hearing Thursday, Bout blurted out “It’s a lie!” as the federal prosecutor argued unsuccessfully for a life sentence.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said 25 years was sufficient and appropriate because there was no evidence the 45-year-old Bout would have been charged with seeking to harm Americans if not approached by informants posing as Colombian rebels. The judge also ordered a $15 million forfeiture.

"But for the approach made through this determined sting operation, there is no reason to believe Bout would ever have committed the charged crimes," she said.

For nearly two decades, Bout built a worldwide air cargo operation, amassing a fleet of more than 60 transport planes, hundreds of companies and a fortune reportedly in excess of $6 billion — exploits that were the main inspiration for the Nicholas Cage film "Lord of War."

His aircraft flew from Afghanistan to Angola, carrying everything from raw minerals to gladiolas, drilling equipment to frozen fish.

But, according to authorities, the network's specialty was black market arms — assault rifles, ammunition, anti-aircraft missiles, helicopter gunships and a full range of sophisticated weapons systems, almost always sourced from Russian stocks or from Eastern European factories.

In the months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S., British and United Nations authorities heard growing reports that Bout's planes and maintenance operations, then headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, were aiding the Taliban while it sheltered al-Qaida militants in Afghanistan.

Bout later denied that he worked with the Taliban or al-Qaida — and denied ever participating in black market arms deals.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Another international judge at Cambodia’s court tasked with trying Khmer Rouge for their roles in the 1970s genocide has resigned over an ongoing rift with his Cambodian counterpart about how many former members of the regime will stand trial.

International Reserve Co-Investigating Judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet said Monday he will step down May 4. He is the second international judge to leave the court in less than one year over disagreements with Cambodian counterparts about the scope of the United Nations-backed tribunal.

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“In view of the victims’ right to have investigations conducted in a proper manner and despite his (Kasper-Ansermet) determination to do so … the present circumstances no longer allow him to properly and freely perform his duties,” he said in a statement.

The tribunal, a hybrid of international and Cambodian judges, has seemingly been mired in internal tussles since it began operations in 2007, following a decade of halting negotiations between the government and the U.N. over the court's structure and functioning.

Kasper-Ansermet said his authority to investigate what is known as cases 003/004 – or the investigation of five unnamed suspects – has been “constantly contested” by National Co-Investigating Judge You Bunleng. At a recent meeting with him, You Bunleng “refused” to discuss the cases and issued a “written order” that he stop.

“Judge You Bunleng’s active opposition to investigations into cases 003 and 004 has led to a dysfunctional situation within the ECCC (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia). A description of the situation will be published,” Kasper-Ansermet said, adding that he had opened further internal queries for “interference with the administration of justice.”

Under the Khmer Rouge, nearly one quarter of the country’s population – or at least 1.7 million people – died from execution, disease, starvation and overwork, according to the Documentation Center of Cambodia.

The ultra-Maoist group strived to create an agrarian utopia (and called their effort a return to “Year Zero”), forcing city dwellers to rural areas to work on large farms, destroying money, shuttering schools and prohibiting religious worship in the predominantly Buddhist country. Intellectuals, or those with an education, were often deemed their enemies and targeted for execution.

The investigation of cases 003/004 has been troubled since it began in 2009, with allegations of political interference by the Cambodian government and a lack of judicial independence.

An international judge tasked to work on that investigation -- Siegfried Blunk -- resigned last year after government ministers made statements about the court not pursuing more trials following the completion of those of four of the regime’s top surviving leaders. Those trials are ongoing.

Kasper-Ansermet –- who said he has been appointed under court rules to replace Blunk, though You Bunleng disputes that -- said in early February that he would order the judicial investigation into case 003 to resume. That case was closed last April, sparking an outcry over how far the tribunal's examination of the regime would go.

He has issued a number of decisions in those cases, informed the suspects of their rights, and will conduct interviews with civil parties starting March 19.  

You Bunleng responded to Kasper-Anserment’s criticism in February, saying he had “ill intentions” for issuing the statement without his knowledge and claimed he was trying “to confuse public opinion” over his alleged opposition to further investigations. He also noted that the Swiss judge was not authorized to undertake any procedural actions while no one has been named to the post of International Co-Investigating Judge.

Former Khmer Rouge jailer's sentence increased to life

One former Khmer Rouge official has been tried, convicted and sentenced by the court: Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, a prison chief who oversaw a torture center where at least 12,000 people died. He received a life sentence.

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SYDNEY -- A coroner on Friday opened Australia's fourth inquest into the most notorious and bitterly controversial legal drama in the nation's history: the 1980 death of a 9-week-old baby whose parents say was taken by a dingo from her tent in the Australian Outback.

Azaria Chamberlain's mother, Lindy, was convicted and later cleared of murdering her and has always maintained that a wild dog took the baby. She and her ex-husband, Michael Chamberlain, are hoping fresh evidence they have gathered about dingo attacks on children will convince Northern Territory Coroner Elizabeth Morris and end relentless speculation that has followed them for 32 years.

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Anne Lade, a former police officer hired by the court to investigate the case, told a packed courtroom at the Darwin Magistrates Court in the Northern Territory that in the years since Azaria disappeared, there have been numerous dingo attacks on humans, some of them fatal.

Rex Wild, a lawyer assisting the coroner, described several of the attacks and said he believed the evidence showed that a dingo could have been responsible for Azaria's death.

'Balance of probabilities'
The Australian newspaper reported that the court was told there have been 239 recorded attacks by dingoes in Queensland between 1990 and 2011.

"Although it (a dingo killing a child) may have been regarded as unlikely in 1980 ... it shouldn't be by 2011-12," Wild said. "With the additional evidence in my submission, your honor should accept on the balance of probabilities that the dingo theory is the correct one."

Morris adjourned the hearing without issuing a decision, and did not say when she would release her findings.

Azaria's death certificate still lists her cause of death as "unknown." The Chamberlains say they want to set the record straight on behalf of their daughter.

"It gives me hope this time that Australians will finally be warned and realize that dingoes are a dangerous animal," Lindy said outside the courthouse in the Northern Territory capital, Darwin. "I also hope that this will give a final finding which closes the inquest into my daughter's death, which so far has been standing open and unfinished."

According to the Australian Associated Press the Chamberlains’ lawyer Stuart Tipple said on ABC Radio before the inquest began Friday that the couple were not bitter.

"What they really want to do is to get the message out there and to make sure that this sort of tragedy never ever happens again," he said.

Fear and paranoia
Azaria vanished from her tent in the Outback on Aug. 17, 1980, during a family vacation to Ayers Rock, the giant red monolith now known by its Aboriginal name Uluru. Fellow campers told police they heard a low growl followed by a baby's cry shortly before Lindy — who had been making dinner at a nearby barbecue area — went to check on her daughter.

Lindy said she saw a dingo run from the tent and disappear into the darkness. There were dingo prints outside the tent, and spots of blood on the bedding inside. Upon seeing Azaria's empty bassinet, Lindy screamed, "The dingo's got my baby!" — a line made famous by the Meryl Streep movie, "A Cry in the Dark," based on the case.

Azaria's body was never found, though her torn and bloodied jumpsuit turned up in the surrounding desert.

Officials, doubtful that a dingo was strong enough to drag away a baby, charged Lindy with murder. Prosecutors said she slit Azaria's throat in the family car — which initial forensic tests said was splashed with baby's blood — and buried her in the desert. Lindy was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Years later, more sophisticated tests found that the "blood" in the car was a combination of milk and a chemical sprayed during manufacture. Three years into Lindy's prison sentence, a jacket Azaria had been wearing was found by chance near a dingo den. Lindy was released from prison and her conviction was overturned.

Still, three separate coroner's inquests have failed to agree on a cause of death for Azaria. The last inquest, held in 1995, returned an inconclusive finding, with the coroner saying there was not enough evidence to prove a dingo was responsible.

In court, Michael Chamberlain fought back tears as he spoke of the nightmarish aftermath of his daughter's death.

"Since the loss of Azaria I have had an abiding fear and paranoia about safety around dingoes," he said. "They send a shudder up my spine. It is a hell I have to endure."

Australians have followed the case closely since it began, and most have strong opinions. Although public support for Lindy has grown over the years, many still doubt that a dingo could have killed Azaria.

"I think that the people that don't think for themselves aren't ever going to be convinced, and it really doesn't matter what you show them," Tipple told the AP. "I could show them a video of the dingo taking the baby and it wouldn't convince them — because they've made their mind up."

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Msnbc.com staff, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.