During an Easter egg hunt in south-west Germany, a vial suspected to contain radioactive poison, the same substance linked to assassinations by Russia, was found in place of a piece of chocolate.
The discovery occurred in Vaihingen an der Enz, near Stuttgart, on Easter Sunday, as reported by Germany’s DPA. Two individuals came across the small plastic bottle labeled as “Polonium 210” and promptly alerted emergency services, leading to the dispatch of 138 emergency personnel and 41 emergency service vehicles. Fortunately, both men remained unharmed.
The content of the 50-millilitre vial, suspected to contain the highly radioactive and rare isotope polonium-210, which is lethal if ingested or inhaled and notoriously hard to detect, has not been confirmed. This substance has been associated with the deaths of Alexander Litvinenko and Yasser Arafat.
District fire chief Andy Dorroch mentioned that the vial, weighing about 200 grams, seemed consistent with a dense material like polonium-210. However, initial tests for radioactivity at the site yielded negative results. The Environment Ministry authorities have taken possession of the vial for further examination.
Litvinenko, a former KGB and FSB agent, fell gravely ill in 2006 after consuming tea spiked with polonium-210 in a London hotel. He passed away three weeks later at 43 years old.
Yasser Arafat, the iconic leader of the Palestinian cause, is believed to have been poisoned with polonium-210 by Israel, a claim denied by the country. Arafat died under mysterious circumstances in 2004 at a French military hospital at the age of 75, a month after falling ill at his West Bank residence, which was under Israeli siege.
In 2012, the Swiss Institute of Radiation Physics discovered traces of polonium-210 on some of Arafat’s belongings. Subsequently, soil and bone samples were collected from his grave in the West Bank. The Swiss team’s 108-page report, published by Al Jazeera in 2013, suggested that the poisoning with polonium-210 was a probable cause of Arafat’s death.
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