Colombian Marxists plotted to sell uranium to Venezuela for 'distant friends'

Colombian Marxist rebels plotted to sell uranium to Venezuela in the belief that they would pass it on to “friends from distant lands”, according to leaked emails.

Paul Reyes wrote: 'It occurs to me that 'Angel' might have an interest in this product for their friends from distant lands. I hope to discuss this topic with the man'

The emails were recovered from the computer of Raul Reyes, a former commander with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) who was killed by the country’s army shortly after they were sent in 2008.

The following year a secret Israeli government report expressed concerns about intelligence suggesting Venezuela supplied Iran with uranium for its nuclear program.

Venezuela is one of the countries currently opposing tougher action against Iran following new evidence that Tehran’s nuclear activities include clandestine efforts to build a bomb.

According to El Nacional, a Venezuelan opposition newspaper, Reyes received an email in February 2008 from fellow Farc commander Edgar Tovar, saying he knew a man in Bogota with 50 kilos of uranium who wanted to sell it at $2.5m per kilo.

In a message to Ivan Marquez, another senior Farc figure, sent the same month, Reyes wrote: “It occurs to me that 'Angel' might have an interest in this product for their friends from distant lands. I hope to discuss this topic with the man."

According to analysis of messages on Reyes’s computer by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, ‘Angel’ is a pseudonym for Venezuela and the man Reyes hoped to speak to would have been a senior member of the Venezuelan government.

But Reyes was killed on March 1 2008 and it is unclear whether or not the Venezuelan government had been contacted about the plan.

Three weeks later Colombia’s government announced it had seized 30 kilos of uranium in a rural area south of Bogota, in what was described as the first capture of radioactive material linked to Farc.

In July this year David Velasquez Caraballo, Venezuela’s Ambassador to Tehran, denied that his country is a “producer or seller of uranium” or had ever discussed supplying it to Iran.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, a radical left-winger and long-time ally of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warned earlier this week that rising global tensions over Tehran could lead to nuclear war.

“At this moment, there is a threat of nuclear war in the Middle East, now really, at this time who is to blame?” he said. “The government of the United States and its allies, among them Israel, that has many atomic bombs.

“It’s worthwhile for the world to reflect on where it is going. A nuclear war could be the last in this world, it could be the end of the world.”

From here.