NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Reuters) - An accused Afghan drug kingpin portrayed by prosecutors as a warlord who helped the Taliban come to power was found guilty on Tuesday of conspiring to import more than $50 million worth of heroin. Bashir Noorzai, 47, was arrested in April 2005 after U.S. President George W. Bush identified him as one of the world's most wanted drug traffickers. The jury convicted him of two counts: conspiracy to import heroin into the United States and a conspiracy to distribute heroin. Noorzai will be sentenced Jan. 7. During his nearly two-week trial in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors argued Noorzai gave the Taliban explosives and weapons in return for protection of his opium crops. They said Noorzai controlled fields where poppies were grown and harvested to make opium, and his organization used laboratories in Afghanistan and Pakistan to process the opium into heroin and arranged for it to be transported to the United States and Europe. "It is apparently difficult for an individual associated with important levels of the Taliban to get a fair verdict in an American court. Apparently, this jury was unable to do that," defense attorney Ivan Fisher told reporters after the verdict, saying he would appeal. Defense attorneys say Noorzai was an Afghan patriot who agreed to cooperate with the United States in the hopes of ensuring the country's stability, only to be duped by U.S. authorities who arrested him. Noorzai flew to New York voluntarily in 2005 and told Drug Enforcement Administration agents he had come to meet with U.S. officials to discuss Afghanistan's future, court papers said. "He brought (his) enormous power to the United States and said, 'It's yours,'" Fisher told jurors in opening arguments. "The government decided instead to arrest him and prosecute him." Assistant U.S. Attorney Anirudh Bansal said Noorzai led an international trafficking organization since 1990 and was a leader of the million-member Noorzai tribe in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, which became a Taliban stronghold. Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban government for failing to turn over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. U.S. officials in Washington have linked Noorzai to bin Laden and al Qaeda, saying in return for helping finance the group it helped him move his drugs abroad. Around 92 percent of the world's heroin comes from poppies grown in Afghanistan, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. (Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Daniel Trotta)
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