Armenian smugglers tried to sell nuclear material to terrorists
The revelation, which emerged from a secret trial being held in neighbouring Georgia, suggested that nuclear smugglers are still very active along the borders of the former Soviet Union.
Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, announced in April that his country, a staunch US ally, had uncovered and foiled a plot to sell highly enriched uranium (HEU) to an Islamist extremist group.
But the details of the operation were not known until Sunday when it was disclosed that two Armenian nationals, a businessman called Sumbat Tonoyan and a physicist called Hrant Ohanyan, were implicated in the smuggling case. Both men have pleaded guilty.
Prosecutors said they had smuggled 18 grams of HEU by train from the capital of Armenia, Yerevan, to the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, in a lead-lined cigarette box. Such a quantity was nowhere near enough to make a nuclear bomb but was meant as a “taster sample” with more HEU available if the buyer was satisfied.
The smugglers thought they were dealing with an Islamist extremist group.
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