News

Procurator Gutsan Will Show his Cards

Publish date: October 22, 1998

Written by: Thomas Nilsen

ST. PETERSBURG (Bellona Web): The third day of the Nikitin trial will be the day when prosecutor Aleksandr Gutsan has to come up with some of his cards. Gutsan will start his cross-examination of Nikitin in the second part of the day.

The courtroom is still closed to international observers, but Nikitin’s lawyer Jurij Schmidt says that he will request an open court later on in the trial. Aleksandr Nikitin will in the first part of the day continue with his statements in the case, and then prosecutor Gutsan will start asking questions. The Judge has called in witnesses for tomorrow.

Jurij Schmidt says the defence team doesn’t need more witnesses than Nikitin himself and those two that the Judge has called in from the prosecutor’s list of witnesses. -We only need Nikitin to tell about the work with the Northern Fleet report, thus showing that this is a case about environmental problems, and has nothing to do with espionage, says Shmidt.

Aleksandr Nikitin says he will continue the work with solving the nuclear waste problems as soon as this process is over.