"The suspect is one of the sailors of the crew, who for no reason set off the fire extinguishing system, as a result of which 20 people died and 21 were hospitalized," investigator Vladimir Markin told Vesti-24 television.

"This sailor has already testified to his guilt," said Markin, a spokesman for investigators probing Saturday's accident about the Nerpa submarine, which raised new doubts about the safety of Russian military hardware.

"In connection with this, the suspect faces charges... of negligence leading to the death of two or more people," Markin said, citing an article in Russian criminal law that carries a penalty of up to five years in person.

Markin said investigators were continuing to probe the incident, Russia's worst naval disaster since the sinking of the Kursk submarine in the Barents Sea in 2000, in which all 118 sailors on board died.

In Saturday's accident, 20 people died when the Nerpa's fire-extinguishing system was triggered as the submarine was being tested in the Sea of Japan, pumping Freon gas into the vessel and depriving them of oxygen.

Authorities said there was no fire aboard the vessel, a new Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine.

Fatalities included three navy personnel and 17 civilians, many of them shipyard workers participating in the tests.

Independent defence experts said the sailor facing charges might end up being a scapegoat for what was a broader failure.

"It will be absolutely unfair if this sailor is designated the sole person to be guilty of what happened," Alexander Golts, a defence commentator at Yezhednevny Zhurnal magazine, told AFP.

"In Russia there is always a tendency to look for a scapegoat," said Pavel Felgenhauer, another defence expert. "The critical lack of qualified personnel in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union is the cause of most disasters."

An official charged with the oversight of law-enforcement agencies also criticised the investigation, the Interfax news agency reported.

"It is certainly troubling that the investigative committee found the guilty party so quickly," Anatoly Kucherena, head of the law-enforcement committee in the Public Chamber, a government advisory body.

Defective gas masks may have been responsible for many of the deaths on the Nerpa, the Russian tabloid Tvoi Den reported, citing survivors.

"I saw people in convulsions ripping off their masks. I also had a breathing apparatus on, but it only worked for seven to 15 minutes," the newspaper quoted warrant officer Yevgeny Ovsyannikov as saying.

"Some of the dead were found with their gas masks on. The breathing apparatuses simply didn't work," another survivor, Dmitry Usachyov, was quoted as saying by Tvoi Den.

Russian media initially reported that the Nerpa was to be leased to India, but officials later denied there were any negotiations with the Indian navy.

The disaster comes at a time when Russia has been flexing its military muscle around the world, with Russian warships due to participate in joint exercises with the Venezuelan navy in the Caribbean Sea later this month.

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