Russian prosecutors Tuesday opened a criminal enquiry over the near-fatal snaring of a mini-submarine with seven crew under the Pacific Ocean. The investigation into the three-day drama of the AS-28 mini-sub "revealed that a series of people involved allowed negligence in the organisation of the submarine's work.
On this basis, the decision was taken today to open a criminal enquiry," Deputy Naval Prosecutor of Russia's Pacific Fleet, Roman Kolbanov, said.
"Names of the people involved are not yet being revealed," he said in the far eastern Russian port city of Vladivostok.
Twenty investigators are working in the enquiry, which is being conducted in the Russian cities of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, prosecutors said in a written statement.
They said suspects broke fleet rules by sending out one mini-submarine by itself, instead of two, in a mission off the Kamchatka Peninsula last week.
Kolbanov said investigators from the Pacific fleet and ministry of defence had been to the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to examine the AS-28, which was cut free from underwater obstacles Sunday by an unmanned British naval submersible.
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