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| Europe |
| Two Arrested for Radioactive Sale Attempt |
| 2003-11-15 |
| Czech police arrested two Slovak nationals who attempted to sell nearly seven pounds of radioactive material to undercover officers working a sting operation, officials said Saturday. But we thought we were selling the material to an underground medical practices that provides free X-ray service to the poor. The potential uses of the substance remained unclear pending an investigation, but an expert said initial tests revealed two components that could possibly be used in a dirty bomb. The suspects were arrested Friday in the Voronez hotel in the city of Brno, 125 miles southeast of Prague, police spokeswoman Blanka Kosinova said in a statement. Police said the men were detained as they were counting the more than $700,000 in cash that they received in the deal, in which officers posed as buyers. You got to wonder how many deals like this are sucessfully transacted. Pavel Pittermann, a spokesman for the nuclear safety office, said that first checks of four parcels containing the substance detected traces of thorium and uranium. While cautioning against jumping to conclusions, he said those two components could be used in a dirty bomb. There is worldwide concern that terrorists might attempt to used smuggled radioactive material to build and detonate such a bomb, which uses conventional explosives to spread radioactivity over a wide area. Such a bomb would typically be packed with strontium, cesium or some other highly radioactive isotope used in medicine and industry. No such device has been used before, but the al-Qaida network is reported to have been interested in such a terror weapon. The content of the parcels will be thoroughly checked in the coming days at the Nuclear Research Institute in Rez, just north of Prague, Pittermann said, and results can be expected in the middle of next week. Officials at the Vienna, Austria-based U.N. nuclear agency said they were following up on the Czech seizure report. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #1 Interesting. But who were the undercover officers posing as? Arabs? |
| Posted by: Charles 2003-11-15 8:35:53 PM |