100 Bars Here, Another Rod There...

"Mr Mukeba said Mr Lumu was suspected of "orchestrating illicit contracts to produce and sell uranium" but he did not name the alleged buyers.

Le Phare newspaper reported that about 100 bars of uranium had disappeared from the small experimental reactor, the oldest nuclear facility in Africa. The uranium produced by the reactor in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, is enriched but not to weapons grade, although it could be used in a "dirty bomb" to spread radiation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and foreign governments have expressed concern about lax security at the plant, which the US has tried to get closed for a number of years. Two years ago the Congolese government denied reports that uranium was shipped to Iran.

In 2000, Newsweek reported that a Kenyan middleman attempted to sell Congolese uranium to Saddam Hussein but the Iraqi leader was under too much international scrutiny to buy it.

The IAEA has criticised standards at the site, which is often left unguarded and is protected only by a low fence and rickety gate. Although the reactor has been on standby for nine years, there are 98 bars of enriched uranium stored at the site, submerged in a pool underneath a padlocked metal grate or in the reactor.

Two uranium rods disappeared from the facility in the late 1970s, one of which is believed to have been found in 1998 on its way to the Middle East via the mafia. The other was never recovered." [ Isn't that special? -ed. ]