Whistle-Blower’s Acquittal Upheld

A branch of the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s acquittal of Alexander Nikitin, a former navy captain who was arrested and charged with treason and espionage after he helped expose the unsafe storage of nuclear waste by the Russian navy. Prosecutors can appeal to the high court’s presidium, but defense lawyers said the strong wording of the ruling all but eliminated that possibility. Nikitin, a naval engineer, was arrested in 1996 and held for 10 months in a St. Petersburg jail. He had worked on a report for a Norwegian environmental group, documenting nuclear pollution above the Arctic Circle.