A year ago Russian opponents of atomic power filed a criminal complaint in Münster against Urenco Deutschland, alleging illegal transportation of atomic waste from Gronau to Russia. The state attorney’s office started to investigate, but wanted to be quickly rid of the politically charged case. In May it stopped its investigation of the globally leading uranium enrichment firm. Now the Russian activists are demanding resumption of the investigation and have engaged a lawyer from Münster.

The background is the delivery by now of more than 21,000 tonnes of depleted uranium from Gronau to Russia. Depleted uranium (DU) is a waste product created in uranium enrichment. Urenco and the licensing and supervisory bodies in North-Rhine Westphalia and Berlin claim that the DU is valuable recyclable material, but there is no commercial world market for it. It is used for …