One day before his superiors decide whether to put the accused plotters of the August 1991 coup back on trial, a judge on Thursday defended his court's decision to abort the original court case.


Lieutenant General Anatoly Ukolov, who presided over the aborted trial of 12 Soviet top officials accused of trying to overthrow then-president Mikhail Gorbachev, told a press conference that the presidium of the Military Supreme Court would meet on Friday to rule whether to grant an appeal by the Public Prosecutor's Office for a new trial.


Ukolov and his fellow judges on the Supreme Court decided to end the trial this month after the State Duma granted an amnesty for the defendants, as part of a larger amnesty adopted last month.


"This court is convinced of the correctness and wisdom of its decision to end the trial," Ukolov said in his first statement to the press since the trial started.


On Wednesday, Deputy Public Prosecutor Eduard Denisov formally submitted a protest to the court's decision, according to Interfax. Denisov, who represented the state at the trial, argued that the court's decision to end the trial contradicted an article in Russia's criminal law that requires courts to continue cases until they reach a verdict.


Ukolov said the court had "followed not just the letter but also the spirit of the law" in deciding that the amnesty was exceptional, because it was a political amnesty rather than a standard pardon for criminals that could only be granted after a decision of guilt.


Genrich Padva, lawyer for Anatoly Lukyanov, one of the defendants, said the article Denisov referred to dates from the Soviet era and did not foresee an amnesty by the State Duma, which then did not exist.