IRAN CITED AS ONE POSSIBLE BUYER OF ENRICHED URANIUM SEIZED IN FRANCE
PARIS 22 July (IPS) French police arrested last week three men in possession of five grams of uranium 253 enriched to 98 percent, a material used in nuclear power stations or making atomic bombs, "Le Journal du Dimanche" reported Sunday.
It was apparently the first time that the enriched uranium was seized in France. Police in Italy and Germany had made similar seizure in the past.
French nuclear experts said only few countries have the proper technologies for the fabrication of enriched uranium, adding that it takes at least ten kilograms to make a nuclear bomb of the kind used by the United States in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during last World War.
They said after the collapse of the Soviet Union, various parts of nuclear weapons, including warheads for missiles and bombs as well as scientists were scattered around the world, with the mafia buying them at cheap prices and selling them to potential highest bidders, among them nuclear hungry countries like Iran, Iraq, Libya or North Korea as well as terrorist groups like Ossama Bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire crusading against Western "corrupt" nations, chief among them the United States.
Mr. Bin Laden lives in Afghanistan and is wanted by Washington, accused of the twin bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania four years ago and the explosion of the battle ship USS Cole in Aden a year ago.
Those arrested include a Frenchman Serge Salfati, in his 30s, a small-time thief who recently finished serving a prison sentence and two, Yves Ekwalla and Raymond Lobe from the African State of Cameroon. Mr. Ekwalla was arrested at the Place de la Nation, after police detected a "radioactive echo" emanating from a small truck. The truck's owner, from Cameroon, was also arrested.
Mr. Lobe, believed to be the gang’s leader, was arrested at his apartment in the city's 17th arrondissement, where police found several airplane tickets to Eastern European destinations and several laboratory analyses for nuclear products, possibly written in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, the newspaper said.
French Interior Ministry and France’s Atomic Energy Commission refused to answer calls placed Sunday by the press.
According to the newspaper, police found a glass vial containing five grams of the enriched uranium wrapped inside a lead cylinder.
"Though the discovered quantity is not enough to make a nuclear weapon of any kind, but the amount may have been intended as a sample for potential buyers interested in larger quantities", the Sunday paper said.
A researcher at Atomic Commission told "Le Journal du Dimanche" that the uranium likely came from a military source, rather than from a laboratory.
French judge Francoise Travaillot has apparently opened an investigation into the case that is "followed closely by DST, the French counter espionage service and the State’s highest authorities, le paper added.
According to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), some 32 seizures of illegal radioactive material have taken place since January, with most, of non-military nuclear waste, being trafficked by petty criminals.
In Spain, Richard Kelly Smith, a 71-year-old US national wanted by U.S. officials in Los Angeles for 15 offences of dealing in nuclear weapons and forging documents, was arrested July 10 by members of the number one group of the organized crime unit in Malaga, the National Police said. ENDS ENRICHED URANIUM SEIZED 22701