South Africa on Wednesday offered bail to an alleged uranium trafficker after determining his contraband posed no threat, Agence France-Presse reports.
The court decision paved the way for Sibusiso Solomon Mkhize to leave jail on $200 bond. Defense attorneys did not pursue a similar offer for his alleged accomplice, Sasa Esael Vulay, due to the Mozambican defendant's undocumented immigration status.
The men, both in their early 20s, reportedly were taken into custody on Nov. 14, when they allegedly sought a buyer in the port city of Durban for roughly two pounds of uranium then in their possession. They are expected to return to court on Jan. 29.
A state-run atomic firm ran an analysis of the uranium and judged it not to be enriched, but to have probably originated at a refinement facility outside Africa. Authorities valued it at $80.
The uranium contained barely half the average concentration of bomb-usable material found in mined ore, according to the assessment by South African Nuclear Energy.
The recovered substance contained 0.38 percent of the fissile uranium-235 isotope, an amount far short of the 90 percent purity needed for use in nuclear arms. Still, the alleged smuggling incident has fueled concern about the threat of smuggled material being used in a radiological "dirty bomb," according to AFP.
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