Raul Reyes, no. 2 in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, was killed in a bombing by the Colombian military early this month. But at the beginning of 2008 he had been to Bucharest negotiating to buy a certain amount of uranium from a lieutenant of the Ukrainian criminal Semyon Yukovich Mogilevich, a member of a Russian mafia group, in order to set "a dirty bomb". While in Romania he was to settle the details of the transaction and get the delivery done in a different country. The SRI (Romanian Secret Service) has neither confirmed nor denied this piece of information. MI6 reports According to 'El Espectador', a Colombian publication, Reyes came to Romania in mid January under a different name and with a fake Venezuelan passport. The publication quotes the statements made by Gordon Thomas, an Irish journalist, who had access to the MI6 reports. Reyes wanted to use the bomb in an attack against the Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, the main enemy of the Revolutionary Armes Forces and the most loyal ally of the US in South America. The terrorist is said to have negotiated with a top member of the Russian mafia headed by Semyon Yukovich Mogilevich. According to 'El Spectador', the US and some European states want the latter arrested for prostitution and for trafficking in both guns and human beings. Ever since the Soviet Union dismembered, the group headed by Mogilevich has been in collaboration with the Al-Qaeda, according to the MI6 report invoked by the Irish journalist. This is the connection that alerted MI6 officials in Bucharest. (...) Such information unveiled by the Colombian press together with the fact that MI6 officials in Bucharest were aware that the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Colombia were ready to buy a "considerarable amount of uranium to make a dirty bomb", as well as the Colombian vice president's statement that in Reyes's computer there was data that the group was having talks about getting radioactive material show a possibility that Reyes was watched while in Bucharest, just as Viktor Bout was. Still it is certain that he was killed in a bombong by the Colombian military more than one month after his visit to Romania.

Bogdan GALCA