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MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's customs agency announced Friday it has seized pieces of radioactive metal from the luggage of an Iranian passenger bound for Tehran from one of Moscow's main airports.

It was not immediately clear if the substance could be any use to Iran's controversial nuclear program.

Iran's semi-official news agency ISNA confirmed that material had been seized from the luggage of an Iranian passenger in Moscow about a month ago, but denied it was radioactive.

Russia's Federal Customs Service said in a statement that agents found 18 pieces of metal, packed in steel pencil cases, at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport after a radiation alert went off. It said the gauges showed that radiation levels were 20 times higher than normal.

Spokeswoman Kseniya Grebenkina told The Associated Press the luggage was seized some time ago, but did not specify when. The Iranian wasn't detained, she said, and it was not clear whether he was still in Russia or not. She did not give his name. The pieces contained Sodium-22, she said, a radioactive isotope of sodium that could be produced in a particle accelerator.

Kelly Classic, a health physicist at the United States' renowned Mayo Clinic, said: "You can't make a nuclear bomb or dirty bomb with it."

"You'd certainly wonder where it came from and why," Classic told The Associated Press. "It's prudent to be a little leery considering where the person's going."

Classic said the isotope can ... >>>