Relatives of Nerpa Victims: Guilty Persons Sit In Admiral Offices

14.10.2011 Relatives of servicemen and experts died at trials of nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) Nerpa plan to appeal from an acquittal delivered on Oct 14 to the sub's commanding officer Dmitry Lavrentiev and engineer Dmitry Grobov; investigators still consider the servicemen guilty.

Pacific Fleet (PF) Court Martial on the basis of jury verdict acquitted two servicemen accused of accident happened to SSN Nerpa in 2008 and claimed lives of 20 persons.

"Twenty men died and dozens damaged their health because of gas poisoning, and no one is guilty of that tragedy. Don't tell me! Relatives of died servicemen discontent with acquitting verdict. We will sue to the Supreme Court", told Margarita Surenkova, mother of died engineer Dmitry Surenkov, to RIA Novosti.

According to her, families of died personnel consider if there are no guilty persons among the crew and trial experts, they must be found in admiral offices.

"Due to lack of financing, the sub had been built for long time. Survivors say the sub often had failures both at the pier and at sea. But someone ordered the sub to sail off", said the interviewee.

As was earlier reported, onboard firefighting system spontaneously operated in SSN Nerpa on Nov 8, 2008 during trials in the Sea of Japan, and mixture of freon and carbon dichloride entered compartments. In total, there were 208 persons on board the sub. Twenty of them died as a result of the tragedy, other 21 were intoxicated.

Investigators charged commanding officer Capt 1 rank Dmitry Lavrentiev and engineer Petty Officer Dmitry Grobov. On Sept 30, the jury acquitted both figurants. In accordance with available evidence and jury's verdict, PF Court Martial found the servicemen not guilty of the tragedy happened to the submarine.

Earlier on, PF Prosecutor Sergei Kolomiets told to RIA Novosti that the procuracy was not satisfied with the jury's acquittal.

As for him, the accident was a result of unauthorized activation of emergency firefighting system which was filled with poisonous carbon dichloride instead of light-toxic freon. In procuracy's opinion, the reason was human factor.

Lavrentiev was incriminated excess of service power resulted in death of two and more persons by negligence (clause 286/3, RF Criminal Code, sanction provides up to ten years of imprisonment).

Grobov was charged of improper execution of service duties resulted in unintentional death of two and more persons (clause 109/3, RF Criminal Code). Also, investigation accused Grobov of involuntary infliction of harm to health of two members of trial team (clause 118/2, RF Criminal Code). The law sanction for the heaviest crime is up to 5 years of imprisonment.