MOSCOW, LONDON — The Russian Interior Ministry started Tuesday destroying 50,000 Motorola C115 mobile handsets that were earlier seized from Russia’s largest mobile handset retailer Euroset, Irina Zubarev, a spokeswoman with the ministry’s K department, said Tuesday, ITAR-TASS reported.

The K department is responsible in particular for fighting illegal imports of electronic equipment.

The ministry said that it had decided to destroy the handsets after tests showed that electromagnetic radiation from the handsets were twice the acceptable levels.

The police seized a total of 167,500 Motorola mobile handsets worth 530 million rubles from Euroset on March 31, after the handsets had gone through customs clearance.

Euroset’s Chairman Yevgeny Chichvarkin said that Motorola should supply Euroset with another batch of 50,000 Motorola C115 handsets as compensation for the destroyed phones.

“We won’t pay for them,” Chichvarkin said, adding that Euroset only purchases handsets that meet all health and safety regulations.

Motorola representatives said earlier that the seized handsets had all the necessary certificates and had been approved for sale in Russia.

The status of the remaining seized handsets is unclear.

The average retail price of Motorola C115 in Russia amounts to 1,200 rubles.

(27.4331 rubles – U.S. $1)