Russian green activist cleared of treason charges
Date: 18-Apr-00
Country: RUSSIA
The FSB security agency, a successor to the Soviet-era KGB, had said Nikitin made
public information about radioactive pollution in the Arctic Sea while working
for environmental campaigners Bellona.
"This is a great victory," Nikitin told reporters after the judge rejected the
FSB's appeal against his original acquittal by the St Petersburg city court last
December.
"The verdict shows that Russia is becoming a law-based state, that the law works.
It is important not only for me but for many people living in this country,"
Nikitin said.
Western countries expressed concern about the Nikitin case and argued that there
is a legitimate international interest in issues concerning nuclear
contamination.
The case has drawn additional interest since Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy
from St Petersburg, became acting president on December 31. Putin, now
president-elect, has vowed to build a state based on the "dictatorship of the
law". Nikitin's research documented the dumping of nuclear waste from 1965 to
1989 as well as Soviet nuclear submarine accidents.
Arrested in 1996, Nikitin, a former navy captain, was held in custody for 10
months in one of Russia's notoriously overcrowded, disease-ridden jails pending
his trial. He was then released on condition he did not leave the country.
The St Petersburg court rejected the treason charges brought against him and said
they violated Russia's constitution because they were based on secret defence
ministry orders which Nikitin could not have known about.
The law on state secrets only came into effect in February 1996, after Nikitin's
arrest.
The court had also cited the European convention on human rights, to which Russia
is a signatory. But the St Petersburg chief prosecutor's office insisted on a
review of the verdict. Interfax news agency quoted the prosecutor's office as
saying it would "study attentively" the Supreme Court's decision. It did not rule
out a further protest.