Poison Found, Italy Orders Seizure of All Grapefruit

Health authorities today ordered the seizure of all grapefruit in Italy after tests showed that several grapefruit in a Rome supermarket had been laced with poison.

Italian news media said the poisoned grapefruit apparently had been imported from Israel, although officials did not immediately say where they were grown.

Last week, an organization saying it was supporting the Palestinian uprising in the Israeli-occupied territories claimed it had poisoned Israeli grapefruit on sale in Milan. Laboratory checks at the time found no trace of poison.

But authorities in the region of Lazio, which includes the city of Rome, said health officials later inspected the grapefruit in one Rome supermarket after a newspaper received a threatening telephone call.

Of the 12 grapefruit on sale, six were found to have been injected with a bluish poison so powerful that it immediately killed laboratory mice.

The caller said he was speaking in the name of the previously unheard of “Organization of Metropolitan Proletarians and Oppressed People.”

The first seizure order was made today by health authorities in Lazio. It was quickly followed by a national health ministry order for the seizure of all grapefruit on sale or in warehouses around the country.

In Turin, the northern region of Piedmont issued a separate announcement that ordered all Israeli-grown grapefruit seized. It appealed to residents to destroy any grapefruit they had at home.