Foreign media outlets have report new details of the extremely enriched uranium (HEU) smuggling case in Georgia. The UK’s Guardian newspaper statement on Sunday that two Armenian citizens, Sumbat Tonoyan and Hrant Ohanyan plead guilty at a “secret trial” to smuggling HEU into Georgia previous March by train from Yerevan to Tbilisi. “The trial has been accomplish behind closed doors to protect the operational secrecy of Georgia’s counter-proliferation unit,” The Guardian quote Georgian officials as saying “But investigators have specified the protector an exclusive firsthand account of the case,” the Guardian wrote.
Information about the arrest of the supposed smugglers with a “small amount” of HEU was announced last April. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili made a statement about the highly enriched uranium seizure at the nuclear security summit in Washington; however the president did not provide any details of the case at that time. According to The Guardian, the uranium example that Sumbat Tonoyan and Hrant Ohanyan were peddling is thought to have been stolen some years ago. The newspaper cited US tests, which have supposedly confirmed that it was “89.4 % enriched, usable in a nuclear warhead”. Tonoyan and Ohanyan only had 18 grams of HEU, according to the British newspaper, however they had been told by their provider in Armenia that “much more was available.”
Tonoyan and Ohanyan smuggled the HEU into Georgia by train in a cigarette box wrinkled with lead to “fool radiation sensors at the border,” according to the Guardian. “Tonoyan, a 63-year-old who once ran a successful dairy business but gamble away his fortune, and Ohanyan, a 59-year-old scientist at the Yerevan Institute of Physics, had set to meet their buyer in a hotel in the Georgian capital on 11 March. They thought they were selling their 18g model to a representative of an Islamist group as a precursor to a larger consignment. But the buyer was an in secret police officer,” the newspaper statement on November 7.
Information about the arrest of the supposed smugglers with a “small amount” of HEU was announced last April. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili made a statement about the highly enriched uranium seizure at the nuclear security summit in Washington; however the president did not provide any details of the case at that time. According to The Guardian, the uranium example that Sumbat Tonoyan and Hrant Ohanyan were peddling is thought to have been stolen some years ago. The newspaper cited US tests, which have supposedly confirmed that it was “89.4 % enriched, usable in a nuclear warhead”. Tonoyan and Ohanyan only had 18 grams of HEU, according to the British newspaper, however they had been told by their provider in Armenia that “much more was available.”
Tonoyan and Ohanyan smuggled the HEU into Georgia by train in a cigarette box wrinkled with lead to “fool radiation sensors at the border,” according to the Guardian. “Tonoyan, a 63-year-old who once ran a successful dairy business but gamble away his fortune, and Ohanyan, a 59-year-old scientist at the Yerevan Institute of Physics, had set to meet their buyer in a hotel in the Georgian capital on 11 March. They thought they were selling their 18g model to a representative of an Islamist group as a precursor to a larger consignment. But the buyer was an in secret police officer,” the newspaper statement on November 7.
No comments:
Post a Comment