Prosecutor Igor Shaboltanov, of the top military prosecutor's office, said he found the barrister's suspicions ungrounded. The sailors were certainly dead before rescue works took start-suffice it to mention an untouched stock of food, drinking water and watertight overalls found in the submarine. As experts have it, none of the crew lasted for more than four to eight hours after the wreck, while Mr. Kuznetsov assumes they were surviving for two days or even longer. Next, expert-analysed SOS calls came not from the wreck area but from elsewhere.
All that made Mr. Shaboltanov qualify the barrister's suit as ungrounded, and call the court to dismiss it.
The court has appointed pleadings for Monday, April 19. A verdict may come the same day.
The "Kursk" nuclear submarine wrecked during a Northern Fleet exercise in the Barents Sea, August 12, 2000. Its entire crew of 118 perished.
