Doctor arrested in Turkey for smuggling human body parts

By KJ Mullins

January 15, 2011

A doctor, 53, has been arrested by Turkish authorities as part of a human organ smuggling ring investigation. On Tuesday Dr. Yusuf Ercin Sonmez was taken into custody in Istanbul on an Interpol arrest warrant.

An Interpol arrest warrant was issued after the European Union's prosecutors brought charges against nine suspects involved in alleged illegal organ transplants taking place in Kosovo including the former permanent secretary at the ministry of health, Ilir Rrecaj, and a professor at Pristina University Hospital. The suspects include senior Kosovan officials according to PanArmenian.net.

The arrest warrant for Sonmez lists crimes against life and health, people smuggling, trafficking and illegal immigration as charges against the doctor.

Sonmez was named by a Council of Europe report last month of "forcible extraction of human organs for the purposes of trafficking" from Serbian prisoners. The prisoners were from the Kosovo Liberation Army who fought against Serbian forces during the 1990's.

"Numerous indications seem to confirm that ... organs were removed from some prisoners ... to be taken abroad for transplantation," read the report.

Turkish police have arrested the doctor in the past on suspicion of removing organs from poor Turks illegally to sell to foreigners. He moved away from Turkey but continued to be accused of continuing the sell of illegally obtained human organs.

In 2008 the issue was brought to light when a victim who had sold his kidney allegedly to the doctor fainted at a Kosovan airport. The victim told authorities that his kidney had just been removed. A raid on the Medicus clinic found that the kidney had been given to an Israeli man.

There are a total of ten who are accused of operating the smuggling ring. It is believed that Sonmez is the head of the organization that is alleged to operate out of the Medicus Clinic in Pristina, Kosovo.

According to reports customers were promised payments for donating a kidney. While their organs were sold for up to $200,000 the victims claim that they were never given payment.

According to reports the human organs were sold to other nations that include Israel, Germany and Canada.

CNN reports that Sonmez is claiming to be innocent of all charges. On Wednesday the doctor said: "There is no such crime. There is no organ trade," Yusuf Ercin Sonmez told reporters outside a courthouse, according to Turkey's semiofficial Anatolian news agency. "There can't be evidence for something that doesn't exist," he added.

Sonmez has been released by Turkish authorities pending trial after being questioned for about two hours.

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This article posted January 20, 2011.