Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said Wednesday that four people accused of sabotaging one of the country's sensitive nuclear sites were only thieves, Mehr news agency reported.
Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said Wednesday that four
people accused of sabotaging one of the country's sensitive nuclear sites were
only thieves, Mehr news agency reported.
"These four people were not saboteurs. They cut the fences and entered the
area to collect scrap iron and steel and sell it on the market," Mehr
quoted Alavi as saying.
"In fact, they were thieves not nuclear saboteurs," said Mr. Alavi,
adding they were "villagers who had done this before."
Mr. Alavi did not specify which nuclear site the arrests were made at.
Iran
's
nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said earlier this month that four people
suspected of attempting to sabotage one of
Iran
's
nuclear plants were arrested.
On Wednesday he said: "If the intelligence ministry... says they are
thieves, then we accept it, but what an interesting thief who dug under the
concrete wall and tried to enter the site."
Tehran
is at loggerheads with world powers over its
disputed nuclear program, which the West and
Israel
suspect is aimed at making a atomic bomb despite the Islamic republic's
repeated denials.
In August last year, saboteurs blew up power lines supplying
Iran
's
underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordo outside the central city of
Qom
.
In 2010, a cyber-attack hit
Iran
's
nuclear facilities. The Stuxnet virus was tailored specifically to target
uranium enrichment facilities.
In recent years,
Iran
has
detained a number of alleged
U.S.
or
Israeli agents accused of spying on, or attempting to sabotage, its nuclear
program.
Several Iranian nuclear engineers have also been killed in what
Tehran
says
were assassinations by foreign intelligence services.
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