ST. PETERSBURG (Bellona Web): The prosecutor Gutsan requested in the opening session of the Nikitin trial that the Court should be closed. After 25 minutes of consultation, the Judge Sergei Golets decleared that the rest of the trial will be closed for public and media.
Journalists and observers from all over the world then started to leave the court room. After some minutes, there were only a few journalists left in the court room, interviewing Nikitin and his lawyers. A group of six guards armed with Kalasnikovs machine guns arrived, and ordered the last two foreign journalists to "get the hell out" of the corridor outside the court room. Bellona Web told the guard that the western journalists did not understand russian. One of the guard then imidiately took up his Kalasnikov and stated "Everyone understands a Kalasnikov". The journalists then left the buildning.
After the trial Nikitin's lawyer Juri Shmidt and the prosecutor Gutsan met each other outside the Court room infront of several TV-crews. Shmidt invited Gutsan to come to the press conference tonight (October 20), but Gutsan said he had no interest in that.
Several St. Petersburg environmental and human rights groups are standing outside the City Court holdning banners with the slogan "Fair trial for Nikitin".
*More updates on the Nikitin trial
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*Bellona Website Nikitin Updates
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