Gość: A.D.
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19.06.03, 02:53
News Updates Thursday, June 19, 2003 Sivan 19, 5763 Israel Time: 03:43
(GMT+3)
>> Gesheft jest gesheft!!! Kupic, sprzedac, nerke, serce, cos jeszcze? W
Izraelu swiezy towar czeka na klienta!
Assuta doctors face investigation for alleged organ dealing
By Roni Singer and Ran Reznick
The police yesterday asked the Tel Aviv
Magistrate's Court to remand four people suspected
of buying and selling organs for transplants.
Judge Hagai Brenner remanded one suspect until
Friday and two others until Sunday, releasing the
alleged ringleader, Yaakov Dayan, on NIS 5,000
The judge, however, appeared
unconvinced by the police's
claims. "I could not find any
article of the law, nor were
the police able to point to
any, that forbids dealing in
organs," he wrote, adding that
the Knesset ought to close this
loophole.
He also said the police had presented
insufficient evidence to indicate that Dayan
was the ringleader, nor did he believe that
documents that the police had labeled forgeries
actually met the legal definition of a
forgery.
Because at present there is no law against organ
dealing in Israel, the remand request listed
other suspicions instead, including conspiracy
to commit a crime, extortion, false
imprisonment, forgery and violations of the
anatomy and pathology laws. Police suspect that
in at least one case, when a man who had agreed
to sell his kidney had second thoughts, two of
the suspects, Albert Chernoff and Gennady
Mashkis, forced him to undergo the operation by
keeping him locked up until it took place.
Nevertheless, the main allegation against the
four is that they bought organs, mainly
kidneys, from needy people - primarily new
immigrants - and then sold them to people who
required transplants.
Dayan yesterday expressed no regret for this.
"I'm proud of my actions," he said. "A district
court judge, two broadcasters, a major general
in the Israel Defense Forces and rabbis all
received transplants through me. I have saved
hundreds of lives."
Though the operations took place in Turkey,
police said that most of the medical tests
undergone by the buyers and sellers were
performed by Assuta Medical Center in Tel Aviv
- the country's largest private hospital, which
is partly owned by the Maccabi health
maintenance organization. The police believe
that Assuta doctors actively cooperated with
the suspects.
"In the best case, they turned a blind eye, even
though they knew a buyer and seller were
involved," said one police source.
Assuta, which was harshly criticized by the
Health Ministry in 1996 because of the
involvement of some of its doctors in organ
dealing, responded that it performed thousands
of laboratory tests every year, and as long as
they were ordered by a doctor, the hospital did
not inquire why the doctor needed the
information.
Police believe the organ-dealing ring also
conducted testing at two other Israeli medical
centers that will be investigated in the coming
days. Other questions they are investigating
are whether the recipients knew that the organs
might have been obtained criminally and whether
the lawyers with whom the ring worked knew that
the affidavits they issued, which said the
organs were being donated rather than sold,
were false. These documents were required by
the Turkish hospitals that performed the
operations.