Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 17, 1994 TAG: 9408170080
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BONN, GERMANY LENGTH: Short
Authorities said it might be time to put Geiger counters on luggage carousels at German airports. The government demanded that the liberal opposition in parliament permit the criminal code to be tightened to allow the federal spy agency to more easily bug suspects' telephones.
Russian officials accused Germany of exaggerating the threat and jumping to the conclusion that seized nuclear material was coming from Russian warhead factories and nuclear labs.
In the fourth seizure of weapons-grade nuclear material since May, police arrested a former East German at the Bremen train station Friday when he delivered a tiny sample of deadly plutonium to a Hamburg journalist doubling as an undercover agent.
The smuggler said the metal container held 2 grams of plutonium, but it turned out to be only a tiny fraction of that - 0.05 milligrams, prosecutors reported. That might cast doubt on the smuggler's claim he could deliver an additional 68 grams (2.5 ounces).
The journalist, interviewed on German television Monday night, argued that prosecutors acted prematurely. He said arresting the smuggler left the additional material unaccounted for.
Seventy grams is far less than needed to produce a bomb. Terrorists with state-of-the-art equipment would need at least 17 pounds of plutonium to make a nuclear bomb, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.
by CNB