Georgia stops the sale of $3 million worth of uranium that could have been used in a bomb

TBILISI, July 17 (Reuters) - Georgia's State Security Service said on Thursday that it had detained two people for handling and attempting to sell $3 million worth of uranium which could have been used to make a deadly bomb.

Georgia's State Security Service said it had prevented a "transnational crime" involving "the illegal sale and purchase of nuclear material, in particular, the radioactive chemical element uranium."

One Georgian citizen and one foreigner were arrested in the western city of Batumi on the Black Sea, the statement said. The pair, whom the statement did not name, could face up to 10 years in prison.

The State Security Service did not say how enriched the uranium was but said that it was such a powerful emitter of alpha and beta radiation that it could have been used to make a deadly bomb with mass fatalities.

Georgia, a country of about 3.7 million in the South Caucasus, has foiled several attempts to fail uranium or other radioactive materials since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union, of which Georgia was a republic.