The non-governmental environment group Ekozashchita asked a German public prosecutor "to investigate the activities of the German branch of Urenco which illegally delivers nuclear waste to Russia," a spokesman for the group, Vladimir Sliviak, told AFP.

The group accused the company of transporting 20,000 tonnes of waste depleted uranium to Russia for further enrichment since 1996 under a deal with the Russian uranium-enrichment company Techsnabexport.

Some 90 percent of the waste uranium has since remained in Russia, the group alleged, claiming that such movement of nuclear material is forbidden under Russian and German environmental laws.

Techsnabexport rebuffed the charge, telling AFP that it had transported "not nuclear waste, but primary materials". It was backed up in this claim by the Russian nuclear authorities.

"Depleted uranium is a primary material which we enrich and use for the country's industrial needs," said Igor Konyshev, an official from Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency.

"The waste which is left after enrichment is treated in conformity with Russian legislation," he added.

The German branch of the company targeted by the action, Urenco Deutschland GmbH, is a subsidiary of the joint British, Dutch and German-owned company Urenco.

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