Nuclear Expert Killed By 120ft Stairwell Fall
2:21pm UK, Thursday October 22, 2009
Graham Fitzgerald, Sky News Online
A British nuclear expert has fallen to his death from the 17th floor of the United Nations offices in Vienna.
Interior of the UN building where nuclear expert met his death
The 47-year-old man died after falling more than 120ft to the bottom of a stairwell. He has not been named.
He worked for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, an international agency charged with uncovering illicit nuclear tests.
A UN spokesman in the Austrian capital said there were no "suspicious circumstances" surrounding the man's death.
Police said no other person was believed to have been involved. No suicide note has been found.
Four months ago another UN worker also believed to be British fell from a similar height in the same building, it has been reported.
The latest incident happened on Tuesday as the United States, France, Russia and Iran held talks nearby about Tehran's nuclear programme.
IAEA boss after talks in Vienna
The talks were hosted by the head of the International Atomic Energy Authority Mohamed ElBaradei, who said afterwards they had been extremely positive.
Iran has been given until Friday to decide whether to sign up to a treaty that would stop it producing enriched uranium with a view to making nuclear weapons.
Under the terms of the deal it would ship about 75% of its current enriched uranium store to Russia and France before the end of this year.
Experts in the two countries will then convert it into fuel for a reactor in Iran producing medical isotopes.
Tehran denies it has been trying to develop nuclear weapons. It insists it has been stockpiling enriched uranium for a future network of nuclear power stations.
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