Police car (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)
Three Croatian nationals have been arrested at the Bezdan crossing point on the border with Croatia for trying to take the pointed end of a radioactive lightning rod out of Serbia. They are being suspected of the criminal offenses of importation, unpermitted processing, disposal and storage of hazardous materials.
On March 5, border police stopped a vehicle and registered radioactivity, i.e. the presence of an object near which high radiation levels were recorded. An inspector of the Radiation and Nuclear Safety and Security Directorate ordered the seizing, secure transportation and storage of the radioactive object, which professional staff from the Vinca Institute did, the Institute confirmed for BETA on March 7.
In Serbia, the removal of radioactive lightning rods was stipulated by the 2009 Law on Protection from Ionizing Radiation, and the deadline was May 2014. Worldwide, such lightning rods were first installed in the 1930s and began to be removed and replaced by more modern ones as of the 1980s, and so there are very few left.
The Serbian Directorate for Radiation and Nuclear Safety announced on March 7 that the estimate was that there were around 570 radioactive lightning rods in Serbia at this time.
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