ST. PETERSBURG (Bellona Web): The two 'experts' who where called in as witnesses at 11:00 local time (GMT+3) today arrived one hour late. "This will be a circus," said defender Yury Schmidt as he returned to the courtroom for the closed court session.
The two 'experts' have no background in nuclear matters, one of them is a lawyer and the other one has a background in mathematics. "The experts are no experts - this is going to be a circus", said Yury Schmidt, when he heard the background of the two witnesses.
As onlookers were leaving the court for the closed hearings of two expert witnesses, we were able to ask one of the witnesses a couple of questions.
"Our task is the task the prosecutor has asked for. We feel we have fulfilled our task, and we are ready for questions," Captain Valery Bavykin, who works at the Central Institute under the Ministry of Defence, said shortly before he entered the courtroom to act as expert witness. "The media has already told the amount the damage adds up to. The expert report is not secret, and the goal of the report is to establish the sum of the damage done. We will not try to hurt Nikitin, but act as experts."
"The figure 4,500 million rubles, which has been mentioned in the media, will be discussed today. The damage of the whole report is much higher, but that is not the question here," said Bavykin. "There has been damage from the report of material character. I feel the experts have done a good job."
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