ACQUITTALS…

ACQUITTALS…

Four years after his arrest on charges of espionage, Navy Captain Aleksandr Nikitin won acquittal from Russia’s Supreme Court. Nikitin had worked with Norway’s Bellona group to investigate and publicize the environmental consequences of mishandling of nuclear materials by Russia’s Northern Fleet. Late last year a St. Petersburg court in a similar case acquitted Navy journalist Captain Grigory Pasko of treason and espionage after he wrote about dumping of nuclear wastes by the Pacific Fleet. Despite the acquittals, the Federal Security Service (FSB) may have made its point about the risks of whistleblowing. Nikitin spent ten months in jail, and Pasko, who was convicted on lesser charges, spent eighteen months in prison, much of it in solitary confinement.