A Syrian-born arms dealer was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison for conspiring to sell weapons to Colombian militants while knowing they sought to kill Americans.

Monzer al-Kassar, 63, long suspected of aiding militants in some of the world's bloodiest conflicts, was convicted in November of conspiring to sell millions of dollars of weapons to militants in a sting operation. No weapons were ever exchanged.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff said al-Kassar and co-defendant Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy, 60, had engaged in terrorism-related crimes that were chronicled with overwhelming evidence, including videotaped conversations. He sentenced Moreno to 25 years in prison.

"I think it's fair to say Mr. al-Kassar is a man of many faces," the judge said. "It is a tragedy that a person of his intelligence has spent so much of his life in activities that certainly weren't calculated to advance the human race."

A federal jury convicted the men of conspiring to provide aid and equipment to a terrorist organization, conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers, conspiring to acquire and export anti-aircraft missiles and money laundering. The charges required a mandatory minimum sentence of at least 25 years in prison. Rakoff said sentencing guidelines called for a life sentence for both defendants, but the U.S. government had agreed when the men were extradited not to seek the maximum sentence.

Rakoff credited al-Kassar with performing services for the Spanish government and other governments over the years but said it did not erase his crimes.

A defiant al-Kassar said the trial would have ended differently if Rakoff had let the jury see classified information about the good work he had done.

"I'm not an informer," al-Kassar said, adding that classified information "would prove that years back, 20 years ago, I had saved lives, including Americans and soldiers."

He said the classified information also would have shown that "without a doubt, I have no conspiracy against Americans or any other nation."

Moreno said he had suffered from terrorism when his daughters were injured years ago during an explosion in Santiago, Chile.

"I am innocent," he said.

Rakoff, though, said evidence of their guilt was overwhelming. He declined a defense request to find that the defendants were not a continuing threat to national security.

He said evidence showed al-Kassar "has a far-flung network that has the potential to be utilized that could represent a threat to national security."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Boyd Johnson said al-Kassar remains a threat because of his wealth, his connection to weapons companies and his willingness to make the weapons available to U.S. enemies.

Prosecutors said al-Kassar had provided military equipment to violent factions in Nicaragua, Brazil, Cyprus, Bosnia, Croatia, Somalia, Iran and Iraq. They said his customers included known terrorist organizations determined to stage "attacks on United States interests and United States nationals."

Al-Kassar was arrested on June 7, 2007, after arriving at an airport in Madrid. He lived in Marbella, near the resort city of Malaga in southern Spain.

Prosecutors said he believed undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents were representing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a rebel army classified in the United States as a terrorist group. The evidence included recorded phone calls, e-mails and meetings.

The agents struck a fictitious $8 million deal for al-Kassar to supply weaponry obtained in Romania and Bulgaria.

Al-Kassar was acquitted in Spain of supplying assault rifles used by Palestinian militants in the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro.

The hijackers killed 69-year-old New Yorker Leon Klinghoffer, dumping his body and wheelchair overboard. Klinghoffer's daughters attended the sentencing Tuesday.