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A Japanese court in Sapporo, Hokkaido began hearings in a pistol smuggling case Jan. 28.

The accused Russian sailor Andrei Novosyolov, 28, was allegedly disovered in Japan when trying to sell a smuggled pistol last November. Police arrested him and found a TT-type pistol and 16 cartridges in his possession. It was the only case of weapon contraband by Russian sailors last year.

Novosyolov spent the next two and a half months in jail, where he admitted to having the gun and cartridges. At the same time the prosecutor’s office in Sapporo found out that on a previous trip in October, 1997 Novosyolov had met a local in Otaru who had asked him to bring a pistol in exchange for a used car. In connection with this, Novosyolov’s lawyer said his client is innocent by the Japanese Constitution because he was asked to bring the gun. The lawyer said that as a result the pistol and cartridges cannot be used as evidence.

The Japanese press reported that Novosylov faces a jail sentence of up to four years in a solitary cell of Futu prison near Tokyo. The same prison now holds two other Russians; one for a murder, the other for accompliceship in stolen car trade. Last fall three more Russians were released from the jail after serving two years each for gun smuggling.