German environmental activists chained themselves to rail tracks for several hours today hoping to stop wagons they said were due to carry a nuclear waste shipment to Britain this week for reprocessing.
The environmental group Greenpeace said a small group of members had been at the Mannheim cargo railway station since early morning to protest against the planned shipment to Sellafield in northwest England.
By early afternoon, German police said they had ended the protest and unchained the demonstrators, who will be charged with dangerous interference in rail transport, an offence that could mean a fine or a jail sentence of up to five years.
The managers of the power stations who are sending their nuclear waste to Sellafield are unscrupulous. "Politicians who have approved the nuclear transports to Sellafield are acting irresponsibly," Greenpeace spokesman Mr Veit Buerger said.
A Greenpeace spokeswoman said 12 members chained themselves to the tracks under an empty wagon that she said was due to transport nuclear waste to the Sellafield reprocessing plant.
Spent nuclear fuel is due to move from power plants at Neckarwestheim and Biblis in southwest Germany to Sellafield late today or early on Tuesday in what will be the first shipment to Britain in three years.
Anti-nuclear activists clashed with police this month as they tried to hold up the first transport in three years of nuclear waste from Germany to France.