(Reuters) - A&nbsp;Russian&nbsp;arms&nbsp;dealer&nbsp;freed&nbsp;last December in a prisoner swap for U.S. basketball star&nbsp;Brittney&nbsp;Griner&nbsp;has been chosen as the candidate of a&nbsp;far-right&nbsp;party&nbsp;for a seat in a&nbsp;Russian&nbsp;regional legislature, state news agency RIA reported on Sunday.
Viktor Bout, once dubbed "the merchant of death" by the United States, served 10 years of a 25-year sentence in U.S. prisons on&nbsp;arms&nbsp;dealing charges until his release in the prisoner&nbsp;exchange with&nbsp;Griner, an Olympic gold medallist.
RIA cited an official in Russia's ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic&nbsp;Party&nbsp;(LDPR)'s&nbsp;local&nbsp;organisation as saying that Bout had been nominated as a candidate for the legislative assembly of the Ulyanovsk region in central Russia.
Bout was arrested by U.S. agents during a sting in Thailand in 2008. The U.S. Department of Justice described him as one of the world's most prolific&nbsp;arms&nbsp;dealers who had sold weapons across the globe to terrorists and America's enemies for decades. Bout always denied the charges.
Griner&nbsp;was sentenced in 2022 to nine years in a penal colony for possessing vape cartridges containing cannabis oil - which is banned in Russia - after a judicial process labelled a sham by Washington.&nbsp;Griner&nbsp;has since resumed her sports career.
Bout publicly joined the LDPR following his return to Russia. Despite its name, the LDPR holds&nbsp;far-right, ultra-nationalist views and strongly supports President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The LDPR has previously provided a home to Andrei Lugovoi, who is wanted in Britain for the 2006 murder of&nbsp;ex-KGB officer and Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko. Lugovoi has served as an LDPR member of Russia's national parliament since 2007.
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(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Gareth Jones)

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Russian ex-arms dealer freed for Brittney Griner to run for far-right party in local vote