Ukrainian Police Seize Radioactive Material,
3 Arrested

Paraphrased by
Steve Waldrop
May 8, 2004

Ukrainian security forces seized neary 375 pounds of a radioactive material seen as a likely ingredient for a "dirty bomb" and arrested three people, authorities said.

Ukraine's police and state security agents seized two containers of cesium-137 and arrested three men from the southern city of Simferopol on the Crimean peninsula,said police spokesman Yuriy Kondratyev . An unspecified number of people were detained throughout Ukraine.

Cesium-137 is considered a likely ingredient for a so-called "dirty bomb," in which conventional explosives are combined with radioactive material.

Cesium-137, a highly radioactive material, is used in soil-testing gauges in construction and is found in photoelectric batteries and vacuum valves. It explodes if it comes into contact with water, and exposure to it can cause blood diseases, sterility and birth defects.

Police and state security agents acted on a tip-off that two buyers from the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, were ready to purchase cesium. Each container seized weighed about 187 pounds, Kondratyev said.

Police declined to detail where the cesium was from or what roles the three suspects played in the case.

Earlier this year, Ukrainian authorities arrested a man trying to take a container filled with approximately two pounds of uranium into neighbouring Hungary.