Objections to the protest by the State prosecutors Osipenko and Pogodin

As a whole the text of the cassational protest of the state prosecutors distorted the facts rudely and even resorted to the unconcealed lie.

According Osipenko and Pogodin’s assertion, the Pacific Fleet Court supposedly for certain has set up that I gave the information about the place and the time of the departure of the train with spent nuclear fuel to the Japanese citizens from NHK, and that I was given a reward.

But it is enough to give a fleeting glance on the minutes of the Court to make certain of the absolute absence of the facts or evidences. The information about the place and the time of the departure was, firstly, unknown to me. (At that I draw your attention to the Court’s use of the words “the approximate date of departure” ). Secondly, they were unknown to people who were interviewed by me, while I was carrying out the editorial task as a journalist. Thirdly, this information is not secret. Fourthly, there aren’t any evidences of the fact that I gave that information to anybody, and especially not to the Japanese. Fifthly, there aren’t any evidences and facts that I was given a reward. There aren’t any facts, which can point a concrete place of receipt, a sum, time, or any testimonies about it.

The State prosecutors refer to the quotation which says that in “June – July, 1996” I supposedly reported to the Director of NHK of “an official information of limited dissemination”. Obviously, the prosecutors indicated consciously in the text of the protest that the information about the train is a state secret. However, it has been called the information of limited dissemination in the verdict. Thus, neither the investigation nor the Court DID SETUP EXACTLY what this information really is.

The phrase “at least 500 dollars” is not corresponding to the demands of article 314 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR. Besides, it is known that Takao Dzjun, a witness, and the others said that the Japanese ALWAYS wrote out a receipt, when they paid out journalists’ fees. There are no receipts in the criminal case, except from a blank form, which is from nowhere and which could be thrown in by the scrupulous people from the FSB.

Further, the prosecutors assert that the Court agreed with the experts’ opinion that the information about the date and the place of the departure of the train with spent nuclear fuel is secret. But the prosecutors consciously failed to mention that the 8^th Department of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces HAS NO right to do the professional conclusion, because there is a special Interdepartmental State secret Committee to carry out such tasks. Besides, Article 7 of the “Law on State Secrets” was ignored, according to it the information of extraordinary accidents and disasters, about the state of the ecology, public health etc. can not be related to state secret or be classified as state secrets.” The information about the train with spent nuclear fuel is about the ecological condition; the condition of the objective, which threatens the citizens’ safety and health. Thus, if I had known the information about the movement of nuclear matter, I would have had the right to announce about it and as a journalist I would have been OBLIGED to do it. Unfortunately, I didn’t know about it, as it is clear from the materials of the case. And those people who knew about it and who classified it as secret are criminally responsible according to the article 237 of the Penal Code.

The groundlessness of the prosecutors’ assertions about my guilt is obvious from the text of the protest itself. So the prosecutors refer to testimony of Deka, a witness, who said that Pasko informed the Director of NHK that he intended to go to “SOME locality” where ” SOME day” a train with spent nuclear fuel was going to leave. The exact place, time, and the day of the departure of this train is not indicated. And you will not find it anywhere in the materials of the case. If I named all this, why don’t they exist in the materials of the case?

The assertion that I was given a reward twice by NHK is not confirmed. There is no information in the materials of the case about who FROM, where, when and how much I exactly was given. This information won’t appear even if the case is sent to different judges as the prosecutors demand.

Further the state prosecutors refer to the paragraph from the verdict: “Takao Dzjun does not remember if Pasko told the information about the place and the time of the echelon’s departure, but maybe he did.”

So, this is a supposition, more exactly a conjecture of the investigation and the Court. There are no concrete facts!

It is said in the protest’s text ” the Court thoroughly examined the identity of the Japanese.” This statement is not true because the Court did not even summon the Japanese neither as the accused (the investigation names them like the buyers of secret information, the recipients of this information and as agents of Japanese secret service), nor as the witnesses. The Court would have to do it, as it is demanded by article 20 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR.

The prosecutors’ reference to testimonies of Ralin, Kazymirov, Kolesnik that the Japanese journalists supposedly were interested in war enterprises can not be the basis of the cancellation of the Court’s verdict. The journalists’ interest in war enterprises is not a crime itself even if the journalists are foreign. Besides, the Japanese journalists have not been made criminally responsible for this interest and even the MFA didn’t lodge any claims to them. And the fact of the Japanese journalists’ arrest in set. Khasan is not related to me at all. There’s a forcing of criminality background on me and the Japanese journalists’ legal activity, made by the prosecutor.

The state prosecutors have also referred groundlessly in the protest’s text to some information from the FSB of Russia and the secret foreign intelligence service. Unfortunately, the Pacific Fleet Court did not find the time to give a legal evaluation of this fact of illicit appearance in the case materials. So, it is not difficult to remark that the existence of such information is not provided by the Criminal Procedure Code. Officially the Pacific Fleet did not inquire the FSB in connection with some concrete accusation, so how it has appeared in the case – it’s incomprehensible. Hysteria, the background, an attempt to press on Court’s decision is forced.

The prosecutors’ phrase that “the Court didn’t take into account that there was not a conclusion of the Peace Treaty between Russia and Japan ” is completely ignorant. These things are not connected with each other, but this statement is a threat against the State, the Pacific Fleet prosecutors’ aggressive disagreement with international policy of two countries, including Russia. To be honest, the people like that can’t represent the executive power and, all the more, work in the prosecutor’s organs which are called up to guard the laws.

The Court didn’t set up indisputably, like the prosecutors had wanted, that the Japanese had hired me to gather the information about the fleet, that the Japanese paid me, that I gave the information. There are NO FACTS in this case – just chatter, conjectures and a slender.

The Court was completely right when it indicated that the evidences about the gathering of information, which was state secrets and that had been giving to the Japanese, were not found. So, why are the prosecutors sure, that other judges will find them, if they don’t exist at all?

The text of the state prosecutors protest talks about some episodes, besides the episode with the train: the questions of the Russian side, the utilization of AS and the removal of spent nuclear fuel. It is obvious that the prosecutors have repeated the removal of spent nuclear fuel, because it does not work a brass farthing. The questionnaire was written in the MFA of Russia, it was officially sent to the Pacific Fleet and was given to me by the officer of the fleet administration. And I am charged with that (if) there would have been answers, they would have been secret. Concerning this – there’s not a single fact that I gathered these answers and gave them to somebody.

Thus the prosecutors’ protest is absolutely groundless, juridical unsupported and was dictated by the necessity to keep their posts and not to be criminally punished for the collaboration with the FSB to pursue the not guilty person. And the reference to the Court’s conclusion does not correspond with the prosecutors’ conception about article 275 of the Penal Code.

I consider that the Pacific Fleet Court’s verdict of July 20,1999 has to be cancelled according the reasons I’ve mentioned in my remarks and disagreements about it, but not because of the prosecutors’ far-fetched arguments. I believe that the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court has got enough proxies, experience and qualification to give me a just sentence and to leave the prosecutors’ protest without satisfaction.

Captain of the 2^nd rank, Pasko, G. M.

August 5, 1999