Chemical attack foiled in UK

2003-11-22 15:50

London - A terror attack in Britain was foiled after a company financed by "the Islamic community" tried to buy a large quantity of toxic chemicals, arousing the supplier's suspicions, the Financial Times newspaper reported on Saturday.

British laboratory Amersham Biosciences received an order in Autumn 2002 for 500kg of saponin from a company giving a London post office box address, the newspaper said.

It said the "terrorist group" planning to launch the lethal attacks was London-based.

"Their plot came to light when the supplier became suspicious about the quantities of chemicals involved," it reported.

The order was refused and the police alerted, it added.

According to experts quoted by the daily newspaper, saponin is a product sometimes used in laboratories to enhance the transmission of molecules through biological cell walls.

Those trying to buy the substance may have planned to mix it with ricin to cause widespread poisoning if the mixture was smeared across public places, the experts said.

But Jonathan Tucker, a Washington-based senior researcher at the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute, was quoted in the article as voicing doubts the plot could have succeeded.

"Even with a carrier of some kind, I doubt it would be possible for ricin to be absorbed through the skin because it is a large protein molecule," he was quoted as saying.

- AFP