Norwegian environmental group Bellona is determined to present information to this week's G7 nuclear summit in Moscow that it claims will clear Bellona employee Alexander Nikitin of treason charges.
Nikitin, a former naval captain, was arrested February 6 for allegedly passing state secrets on Russian Navy nuclear waste dumping procedures during his employment with Bellona.
Bellona head Frederic Hauge said the organization had compiled some 600 references from international press clippings and studies proving that information furnished in a study co-authored by Nikitin was already known in the West.
He said he planned to bring case facts to US President Bill Clinton's attention during Mr Clinton's private visit to St Petersburg on April 18.
Mr Hauge said that the Nikitin case is the most recent example of a pattern of Russian state harassment of environmental organizations.
St Petersburg Bellona officials said last week that the city's Federal Security Service (FSB) was doing all it could to stop them from raising the Nikitin case with those attending the summit.
St Petersburg Bellona representative Igor Kudrik said he has been interrogated by FSB officials weekly and asked to sign documents committing him to non-disclosure of government secrets.
"If I sign them," said Mr Kudrik, "it means I agree with their definition of `classified' and am criminally liable if Bellona and I present information on Nikitin's behalf at the G7."
Tatyana Chernova, Nikitin's wife, has accused the FSB of listening to her telephone conversations.
Ms Chernova said her phone had also mysteriously stopped working during crucial moments in the case's development.
FSB officers would not comment on the case.
"On the day Alexander [Nikitin] was arrested our phone stopped working for more than a week," Ms Chernova said. "The same happened the day of his bail hearing."
Mr Kudrik said Bellona's telephones were shut off on the same days.
Repair workers revealed that both lines had been disconnected locally.
Nikitin was denied bail by the Military Court of St Petersburg on April 4, even though Bellona agreed to post unlimited surety.
Ms Chernova also said that FSB officers had inquired after people with whom she converses on the telephone who have no relationship to the case.
She said that she has regularly been followed.
"The FSB is not interested in keeping its activities secret from me," she said.
Mr Hauge said that openness about the content of the Nikitin report was essential for international development and funding projects to aid clean-up on the Kola Peninsula.