RE: Man Sentenced in radioactive Poisoning Case

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 17:02 11.01.2000 -0600, you wrote:
>Franz,
>
>> When any coworker, who was not specially authorized needed some material
>> out of these, it was handed out to him by me for the time of use and then
>> put back.
>
>The difference in your assessment lies in the fact that these 
>individuals, the victim and the sentenced individual, were both 
>trained authorized users. For that reason alone, the wilful act could 
>not be prevented. 

Probably I have misunderstood the whole thing - always "theft" was
mentioned. There is a big difference between misuse of radioactive material
and theft of it. If an authorized user misuses the material then he or she
is exclusively to blame for the "crime". A good question - is the "usage of
improper and unsuitable means" (bad translation from German) a crime? And
to what extent? Bank robbers using a loaded gun get much higher punishment
than somebody using a fake gun made from plastic. If somebody steals the
material from a unsatisfactorily secured place then there is no question
that - besides the criminal to be punished for his crime - also the
licensee is to be cited for not having properly secured the material. - Do
you think that my intentions are now better explained than before?
Hopefully! -

I ask you, based on your comments above, did you 
>watch all of your authorized workers when they worked with RM? I 
>would suspect not.

In almost all cases I did the dilution of standards myself and my
collaborators, who were in principle authorized to do even that, recieved
diluted material, with no potential for harm. If they had wanted to use
this to scare somebody, they would have been responsible for that. But if
they - or somebody else - would have been able to break into the lead
castles for instance by breaking into the room where the lead castles were
stored and to which only authorized people have access and to use the key
because I had left it on my desk, then I or my institute would have faced
big problems. 


It is getting very complicated!

Best regards,

Franz


Franz Schoenhofer
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at

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