Pacific Fleet Prosecutor: People Guilty of Nerpa Tragedy, Not Equipment

18.05.2012 It is people who are to blame for accident happened to nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) Nerpa, but not equipment, said Pacific Fleet (PF) Prosecutor Sergei Kolomiets.

"Military collegium of Russian Supreme Court agreed with our arguments and claims of complainants that the acquittal was lawless and groundless. That acquittal was vacated due to violations during the proceedings that affected objectivity of the judgment", Kolomiets told Izvestiya".

"For instance, the defense used 'forbidden tricks' like aggressive behavior, disregard of numerous judge warnings, sidetracking of inquiry from the fact in question, and so on. In such a manner they managed to affect the jury's opinion and persuade them that the case was framed up, and accused servicemen were victims of law enforcement authorities. It came even up to blasphemous comparison of Lavrentiev with crucified Jesus", the prosecutor said.

"Our posture is firm and based on belief that Nerpa's commanding officer Lavrentiev did not take proper actions to train the crew, and petty officer Grobov being unaware of operating principles of new equipment, accidentally switched on fire-extinguishing system which resulted in casualties", Kolomiets said.

"In fact, the crew was not qualified in handling of new hardware and did not know that keystrokes on some consoles of Molibden-I system may lead to extinguishant entering compartments. The commanding officer concealed that unawareness and reported the sub was ready to take sea. Consequences of the trials with unskilled crew on board came out on November 8, 2008 when 20 persons died due to the fault of Lavrentiev and Grobov", the PF Prosecutor said.