Russian officials denounce effort to reopen inquiry

MOSCOW -- Russian Defense Ministry officials insisted the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster was a closed case Wednesday, accusing a lawyer trying to reopen it of distorting the facts to promote his career.

Boris Kuznetsov represents the families of 30 of the 118 Kursk crew members, all of whom died when a practice torpedo exploded and the submarine sank in the Barents Sea. He wants prosecutors to acknowledge the military's guilt and bring charges against officers he says were responsible in the August 2000 catastrophe.

Prosecutors closed the books on the case in July, saying no one was to blame and that the crew could not have been saved. They concluded most sailors died immediately and that 23 people remained alive for eight hours -- too little time to rescue them.

But Kuznetsov says the sailors were alive well beyond eight hours and that the military's slow response may have caused their deaths. He also says the sub and its crew were not prepared for the exercises.

Plans to appeal

The Chief Military Prosecutor's office rejected Kuznetsov's request to reopen the case in December. The lawyer says he plans to appeal to the Moscow District Military Court.

On Wednesday, the Defense Ministry's chief forensic expert Viktor Kolkutin said there was no doubt the sailors were alive for only eight hours.

Kuznetsov's accusations "evoke deep indignation," he told a news conference.

"Unfortunately, we have seen a trend recently among lawyers to try to make a name for themselves on other people's misfortunes," Kolkutin said. "What's more they use such methods as openly juggling the facts, distortion of evidence, conjecture, consultations with obscure, anonymous experts of dubious competence, and sometimes plain lying."

Kolkutin said the lawyer was sullying the reputation of ministry experts and "chafing the still unhealed wounds of the relatives who lost their loved ones."

Kuznetsov thinks the sailors were alive longer because a ministry forensic report that says they died within eight hours of a fire in the ninth compartment does not say when the fire started.

The lawyer told The Associated Press he thinks the fire broke out some time after the initial explosion when equipment in the ninth compartment got wet from flooding.

Kuznetsov also said that rescue vessels sent to the area heard what seemed to be SOS signals, and that ministry experts acknowledged they came from a submarine. The military has claimed the noises didn't correspond to the location of the Kursk and probably came from other ships.

He said prosecutors' refusal to reopen the case was "a political decision, not a law-based one" and that the navy needlessly put the sailors at risk.

"I would understand if it was a war. But how can you risk people's lives ... if you don't have the resources to save them?" Kuznetsov said. "People's lives should come first."

The Kursk disaster evoked widespread criticism of Russian officials all the way up to President Vladimir Putin, who did not immediately interrupt his vacation to deal with the crisis and waited four days to accept international offers of help in rescue efforts.

Putin was still defending himself almost a year later, saying there was never any chance of rescuing any sailors.