Biological Germ Warfare Fear Over African Monkeys Sold To Iran

If this is your first time visiting National Terror Alert you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. The National terror Alert feed features breaking news, alerts and bulletins on demand and it's free of charge..
You will only see this message on your first visit to the site. Thanks for visiting!

Hundreds of endangered monkeys are being taken from the African bush and sent to a “secretive” laboratory in Iran for scientific experiments.

An undercover inquiry by The Sunday Times has revealed that wild monkeys, which are banned from experiments in Britain, are being freely supplied in large numbers to laboratories in other parts of the world. All will undergo invasive and maybe painful experiments leading ultimately to their death.

One Tanzanian dealer, Nazir Manji, who runs African Primates, an animal-supplying company based in Dar es Salaam, said that in recent years he had been selling up to 4,000 vervet monkeys a year to laboratories, charging about £60 each.

Vervets are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). Despite this they are being routinely caught and sold to any buyer prepared to pay.

Another Tanzanian dealer, Filbert Rubibira, was asked last year to prepare an order of monkeys to send to the Chinese military for “scientific purposes”. The deal was cancelled at the last minute for reasons that were unclear.

Rubibira told an undercover reporter posing as a buyer that the Cites office in Tanzania would sign permits regardless of what fate awaited the monkeys. “They don’t care about that,” he said. “If it’s for scientific, if it’s for the zoo, if the plane is accepted for transport they don’t care about that . . . The purpose is not a problem.”

From Adnkronos

More than 215 endangered monkeys have been sold to Iran by a Tanzanian dealer and sent to a laboratory known for conducting experiments into biological weapons, according to a British media report.

An inquiry by the London daily, The Sunday Times, revealed that the endangered Vervet monkeys had been sold to the Razi Vaccine & Serum Research Institute in Karaj, located 50 kilometres west of Tehran.

The monkeys, sold for 75 euros each, were reportedly used to test new vaccines, but suspicions arose when the Iranians reportedly bought monkeys that weighed only one and a half kilos. According to the monkey dealer, monkeys of this size cannot be used for that type of experiment.

The Sunday Times said that the monkeys may have been used for research involving biological weapons, because the Razi Institute has been accused of carrying out experiments by an Iranian opposition group.

“Iran is very secretive,” said the Tanzanian dealer Nazir Manji, who sells over 4,000 monkeys each year to laboratories all over the world.

“They said it (the Vervet monkeys) was for our country, for vaccine,” said Manji, referring to Iranian buyers.

“But I think they use it for something else. You know why? Because they don’t go on kilos. Iran wants 1.5 kilos to 2.5 kilos, (but) 1.5kg for vaccine is not possible,” said Manji.

Source