VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, April 26 (UPI) -- A jury acquitted two men accused of being responsible for the deaths of 20 people aboard the Russian nuclear submarine Nerpa in a deadly 2008 accident.
The accident, in which a fire safety system was activated without permission, released poisonous freon gas, suffocating to death 20 men, including 17 civilian shipyard workers, RIA Novosti reported.
There were 208 people on board the vessel at the time conducting sea trials in the Sea of Japan.
Capt. Dmitry Lavrentyev was charged with abuse of authority in the accident, and engineer Dmitry Grobov was accused of causing death by negligence. The exact way in which the men were allegedly involved in the accident was not reported.
A jury in Vladivostok in Russia's far east cleared the men of all charges Friday on grounds the investigation into the accident had not been properly conducted, RIA Novosti reported.
The two had already been acquitted of the charges once before, on Sept. 14, 2011.
The prosecution vowed to appeal the verdict.
Meanwhile, other men aboard the Nerpa at the time of the accident have written an open letter defending the actions of Lavrentyev and Grobov and instead blamed the defense industry for creating a fire-suppression system contaminated with a poisonous chemical, RIA Novosti reported.
