Egypt detains four over radiation deaths

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Egypt detains four over radiation deaths

CAIRO, July 3 (Reuters) - Egyptian prosecutors have remanded 
four men in custody for four days to question them about a 
radioactive cylinder that killed a Nile Delta farmer and his son last 
month, security sources said on Monday. 

They said Salem Sayed Ahmed, owner of an industrial 
maintenance firm named Consultant Office for Welding and Export, 
and Raafat Mohamed, a Sudanese technician, and two other 
technicians were accused of gross negligence, manslaughter and 
unintentional injury. 

Ahmed also owns an import firm named Wico International, which 
had imported the cylinder, carrying the serial number F3139, from 
the United States, the sources said. 

Information Minister Safwat al-Sherif said last week the farmer's 
family had taken the poisonous cylinder home, not knowing what it 
was, but hoping it was valuable. It was not known how or where the 
family found the object. 

The farmer, Fadhl Hassan Fadhl, his wife and five children were 
admitted to a local hospital in early June, suffering from skin 
eruptions. One son died there. Fadhl died in a specialised Cairo 
hospital, where his wife and surviving children remain. 

Authorities have cordoned off the village of Mit Halfa, about 40 km 
(25 miles) north of Cairo, taken blood samples from residents and 
admitted some of them to hospital for tests. 

Security sources said technicians from the consulting firm had left 
the radioactive device, used in welding, at a site where they were 
fixing liquefied gas pipes, believing it was buried with the pipes. 
Ahmed failed to inform the competent authorities that the object 
had disappeared, they added. 

If convicted, the accused could face jail terms ranging from six 
months to 10 years. 

Hafez el-Fouli, who heads an emergency committee at the state 
Nuclear Research Centre, told Reuters the cylinder, a sealed 
radioactive source, was used to test the quality of pipe welding. 
``The equipment is called a gamma-camera and the radioactive 
source is made of irridium or cobalt. 

``Fortunately that source is made of irridium whose life is much 
shorter,'' Fouli said of the cylinder found in Mit Halfa. 

He said radioactive sources were ``widely imported for industrial 
and medical purposes.'' 

Other experts said the state Atomic Energy Authority or the Health 
Ministry normally authorise such imports. 

Ahmed told prosecutors he had imported two similar devices and 
taken them to Giza governorate. Experts removed them safely, 
security sources said. 
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