By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — "Russia's Federal Security Service [FSB] said yesterday that it had observed all relevant legal norms in its arrest and detainment of Alexander Nikitin", an Itar-Tass report on September 11 stated blandly. The security service, the report continued, also "dismissed Amnesty International's recent designation of Nikitin as a 'prisoner of conscience'".
With this statement, the heads of the former KGB evidently hoped to defuse the most damaging scandal they have created for themselves since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Nikitin case first attracted international notice early this year as part of a campaign of harassment against environmentalists. As the months passed, the case acquired political implications that reach far beyond the right of the environmental movement to exist and operate.
The continuing detention of Alexander Nikitin now raises the question of whether the human rights guarantees of the Russian constitution are worth anything at all, and whether there are any real legal checks on the power of the security forces.
A former naval captain working as a researcher for the Norwegian environmental organisation Bellona, Nikitin was arrested by the FSB in St Petersburg in February. He was among the authors of a Bellona study that described the dangerous mishandling of radioactive waste by the Russian navy's Northern Fleet, which is based on the Kola Peninsula in Russia's Arctic north-west.
FSB spokespeople have stated that Nikitin is being held on suspicion of espionage — a crime which can carry the death penalty — after revealing secret information to which he had access during his career in the navy. Bellona argues, however, that all the information used by Nikitin as an environmental researcher was obtained from freely available sources.
Compliant judges
One of the most alarming aspects of the case is the fact that Nikitin still has not been formally charged. At six hearings so far, judges have agreed to postpone the date by which the FSB would normally have had either to file charges against Nikitin or to release him.
The readiness of the court system to grant the FSB's wishes has been quite remarkable. And even when the security service has met with rebuffs, it has shown an alarming ability to sidestep court decisions and carry on as it chooses.
The FSB's ability to flout judicial rulings seems to extend even to decisions of the Constitutional Court, Russia's highest legal authority. On March 29 the Constitutional Court ruled that the prosecution against Nikitin should be heard in a civilian rather than a military court. But in a closed-door hearing on June 10, the FSB convinced a civilian court judge to grant an application from the FSB for the case to be transferred to a military court.
At present, the June 10 ruling is being allowed to stand. If a trial before a military court goes ahead, it will be closed to the press and public, and the FSB will have more control over Nikitin's lawyer.
The FSB's reluctance to have a trial proceed in the public gaze is understandable when some of the legal problems before the prosecutors are considered. Russia's 1993 constitution states that material relating to environmental dangers to the population may not be classified as secret. This suggests that the attempts to conceal details of the nuclear waste hazard on the Kola Peninsula are quite illegal. The recently adopted Law on State Secrets sets the maximum period of secrecy at 30 years; the essence of the accusations against Nikitin reportedly relates to events 30 to 35 years back.
Interviewed by Izvestia in June, Nikitin's lawyer, Yury Shmidt, expressed the view that the military experts entrusted with preparing the case had not been guided by the current constitution and laws, but by obsolete and now illegal Defence Ministry regulations.
Clearly unsure that it can prove Nikitin guilty, the FSB is punishing him nonetheless. The conditions under which he is being held are not to be compared with the hellish regime in normal Russian remand prisons, but are far from meeting international standards. At an unsuccessful bail hearing on August 23, Nikitin reportedly appeared "dazed, visibly fatigued, unshaven and several kilograms thinner".
International campaign
The decision by Amnesty International to declare Nikitin a prisoner of conscience was announced at a news conference in St Petersburg on August 30. According to UPI, an Amnesty representative said the organisation planned to launch an international campaign to bring Nikitin's plight to the attention of world leaders. The representative also described the case as a "serious test of the independence of the judiciary" in Russia.
Amnesty International's announcement coincided with the appearance in Russian bookshops of the complete Russian-language edition of Bellona's report, entitled The Russian Northern Fleet: Sources of Radioactive Contamination. Bellona activists had been allowed to bring 400 copies of the report, supposedly containing secret information, through Russian customs without impediment. Bellona representative Nils Bohmer later told the English-language Moscow Times:
"The fact that customs allowed us to bring in this allegedly classified material proves that the FSB's case against Nikitin is a political rather than a treason case.
"The report comes from over 800 open sources and will hopefully prove the charges of the FSB are ridiculous."
The persecution of Nikitin is not preventing the truth about the navy's neglect of nuclear safety from coming out, even within Russia. Indeed, Nikitin's plight has focused far more attention on the dangers to health and the environment on the Kola Peninsula than might otherwise have been the case. Meanwhile, the moves against Nikitin are causing significant embarrassment to the Russian Foreign Ministry, and are increasing the difficulties of negotiators trying to convince western governments that Russian "democracy" deserves financial support.
FSB under pressure
Like almost all sections of the Russian state machine, the FSB has taken a battering in recent years. Work in the security organs has lost the prestige it once possessed, and is no longer well paid; even leading officials now have to scrape by on salaries of about $US300 a month. FSB officers who are young and adaptable enough to make careers elsewhere are quitting in large numbers.
The officials who remain do not seem to have had any special political problems in making the switch from defending Soviet "barracks socialism" to safeguarding the "savage capitalism" of the Yeltsin era. But according to reports, there is extensive confusion within the FSB about the organisation's role in the new circumstances. Effective adaptation is hindered by the fact that the FSB remains rigidly bureaucratic, suffering from a cult of paperwork that overwhelms officials and prevents the study and discussion of real problems.
Meanwhile, the FSB is under strong pressure to show results in the fight against organised crime. Its successes here have been negligible, and the sense of failure has demoralised its personnel still further.
Among FSB officials, the psychological disposition is undoubtedly present for making capricious use of their organisation's still-considerable muscle. If the FSB cannot nail mafia kingpins, it can salve its ego by persecuting less well-connected prey — such as environmentalists. Here, the FSB retains much of its ability to coerce and intimidate state officials, including judges, who still fear that their careers could be ruined by adverse mention in a security report.
The FSB, however, is not the supreme authority in the state. President Boris Yeltsin is a celebrated cutter of Gordian knots, and the Nikitin case has become notorious and damaging enough that Yeltsin would have much to gain from ordering it dropped. He has not done so. This suggests that a good deal of the mentality in the FSB is shared by the president.