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United Kingdom Brings Terrorism Charges Against Three Suspected of Seeking Materials for Dirty Bomb
British authorities charged three men Friday with trying to obtain radioactive material to make a “dirty bomb,” Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 27). Roque Flaviano Fernandes, Dominic Agnelo Martins and Abdurahman Ranyare were charged under the British Terrorism Act 2000. They made a brief court appearance Saturday and were ordered held until they are scheduled to appear in court again on Nov. 1. Police detained four men on Sept. 4, but released one man without filing charges, according to AFP. The News of the World newspaper reported two days after the arrest that it had infiltrated a gang looking to buy a kilogram of “red mercury,” a Soviet-era material which it said could be used to make a hand-held dirty bomb. The explosive allegedly was to be sold to a Saudi national for use in the United States or United Kingdom (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 2). Meanwhile, Time magazine reported yesterday that an Islamic cell was attempting to build a dirty bomb before being broken up in August in the United Kimgdom. The arrests were the result of a yearlong surveillance operation code-named Operation Spangle, according to AFP. Investigators discovered a number of household smoke detectors, which authorities suspect the group wanted to cannibalize for trace amounts of americium 241. Officials said it was extremely unlikely that enough of the radioactive chemical could be harvested from the devices to create an explosive that could cause radiation sickness, Time reported. Others, however, contended that the release of even small amounts of radioactive material into a crowded stadium or subway station could trigger radiation sensors, incite panic and cause contamination, according to the report (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 3).
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