Back-Yard Proliferation

Local authorities in Lower Saxony have confirmed that an unnamed man in the town of Lauenförde has been caught in possession of enriched uranium. He had 110 grams of the radioactive nuclear fuel, in the form of 14 pellets. They were buried in a steel container in the man’s back garden.

The pellets were designed to act as fuel rods for nuclear reactors, but how they ended up in a 45 year old man’s back garden remains a mystery.

Authorities remain baffled as to how the man got hold of the radioactive element uranium, and managed to apparently keep it undetected for 15 years. All this despite him first telling local police he had it in his possession over 10 years ago.

Possessing nuclear fuel is a criminal offence in Germany, but authorities say they see no need to imprison or charge the man before they have completed their enquiries.

Letter of admission sent to Merkel herself

Jutta Kremer-Heye, spokeswoman for Lower Saxony’s ministry for the environment, admits that having uranium in one's personal possession is an unusual offence. "Something like that is simply not allowed," she said. "Then again the man did turn himself in. With the help of his lawyer he wrote a letter to Chancellor Merkel and then that letter came to us in Lower Saxony."

Kremer-Heye adds that the letter arrived at the Chancellor’s office over a month ago, but action was only taken last week. The letter was forwarded from department to department. So why the delay?

"We first checked the letter, because it was somewhat implausible," Kremer-Heye added. "It said he had had the pellets for 16 years, and had taken the police to where he thought the pellets were in 1994, but they found nothing.

"So we had to check whether what he said was believable. Then a week ago we sent our radiation team out, and with the help of the man they actually did find this steel container buried in the ground with the pellets inside."

Enclosed with the letter was a diagram of the box he kept the pellets in, and Kremer-Heye says this drawing was convincing enough to warrant closer investigation.

Hardly weapons-grade material...but still!

The pellets were not a particularly dangerous. Uranium must be enriched to a minimum of 60 percent to be useful as a weapon -- whereas these pellets were only enriched to 4 percent, making them hazardous to human health only after prolonged contact or ingestion.

They are also hard to detect because the radiation levels are so low. This may help explain why the pellets weren’t found the first time the man tried to confess.

It wasn’t only in 1994 that the man tried to tell his bizarre story. Local papers report that he even turned up at the offices of the influential German weekly Der Spiegel with the radioactive pellets on his person, but he simply wasn’t taken seriously.

The pellets are now to be examined in Karlsruhe, with the major questions being where they came from and how old they actually are.

The riddle of what drove the man to get the pellets, bury them in his garden for years, and then admit what he did to the German Chancellor herself, could prove even harder to solve.