The Ministry of Smuggling

Russian biologist Oleg Medyannikov is suspected of the FSB of smuggling of biological weapons in France. According to Nature magazine writes on Thursday, at the customs he seized the typhoid causative agent, allowed for exporting with a mine.

Medannikov is not released from the country for eight months. Over the past two months, he was interrogated six times at the FSB. A criminal case has been instituted against him under the article "smuggling", which provides for up to seven years in prison.

Medyannikov told the magazine that last week, FSB officers talked with the deputy director of the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after N.F. Gamalei where he works. After that, Medyannikov was offered to quit. The Grani.ru correspondent contacted the scientist, but he refused to comment on the situation.

On December 12, 2006, before flying to Marseille from Sheremetyev, customs officers confiscated 20 test tubes with nonpatogenic strains of a typhoid against the Tif, allowed by the Ministry of Health to export to France. His computer and USB cards were also seized.

Medyannikov is studying Rickettsia Prowazekii - microorganism, which is transferred by lice and causes rash typhoid. The laboratory in which he works has been working with colleagues from the Mediterranean University in Marseille for many years.

The French epidemiologists were going to compare the two strains of R. Prowazekii - Madrid E and Evir, produced more than 20 years ago in the Soviet Union and stored at the Gamaley Institute. Both strains are not considered virulent and are used in vaccines.

Medyannikov was allowed to fly to Marseille without samples. In January, after returning, he was informed that confiscated drugs were sent to the secret laboratory "for examination". Three weeks later it turned out that an additional examination was required (the results were the first in his favor). There are still no results of the second examination.

The biologist became a not -free one: going to a tourist trip to Cameroon, he already at the airport found out that he was forbidden to leave the country. The customs officers did not give any explanation, saying that the order "is not discussed."

In July, a criminal case was opened under an article on smuggling of materials and equipment that can be used to create weapons of mass destruction. The case was opened despite the permission of the Ministry of Health to export strains and letters from the scientific leaders in Russia and France with confirmation of the safety of samples.