http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10146338/Organ-trafficking-a-deadly-trade.html
Organ trafficking: a deadly trade
A kidney? £84,000. A heart? Up to £1 million. With the
number of organs now critical, wealthy patients are spending
a fortune on illicit transplants. But it is the desperate 'donors'
who are paying the ultimate price.
Angry kidney sellers show scars caused by operations to remove their kidneys in Lahore,
Pakistan Photo: AP
By Julie Bindel
7:00AM BST 01 Jul 2013
One January night in 2004, Susan Sutovic was woken from her sleep by a persistently ringing
phone. “It was an international call from Belgrade,” she says. “Telling me my son Petar was dead.”
Twenty-four-year-old Petar Sutovic was, at the time of his death, staying in his mother’s holiday
apartment in Belgrade and studying law. Petar’s body was allegedly discovered in his bed late at
night by his flatmate.
Paramedics were quick to the scene, and, although no death certificate has ever been issued, the
pathologist that authorised the release of Petar’s body to be flown home to Britain said that the
cause of death was a drugs overdose.
“Paramedics claimed that a needle was found protruding from his arm,” says Susan, “but my son
was not an addict.” Almost a decade on, neither a toxicology nor post mortem report from Serbia
has ever been seen by the British authorities. The death scene, Sutovic insists, was “staged”. In
Britain, a second post mortem examination of Petar’s body was undertaken. The pathologist who
led this examination noted that the heart and pancreas were absent from the body, “no injuries were
seen” and that “death was associated with a potentially fatal blood level of morphine”.
When she viewed her son’s body upon his return to Britain, Sutovic noticed a number of facial and
other injuries on Petar that had not previously been recorded. She began to form her own theories
about what had happened to her son: in her opinion he was the victim of organ traffickers.
“My son was murdered, but the Serbian and British authorities have put me through hell, forcing me
to uncover the truth and blocking me all the way,” says Sutovic when we meet in her west London
home. “I do not want the 10th anniversary of Petar’s death to pass before I have laid him properly to
rest.” Sutovic’s belief is that Petar was killed to “get at me” by people who then realised they could
sell his heart for a fortune; or perhaps the hit man was paid with the organs.
Susan Sutovic with a portrait of her son,
Petar, who she believes was killed by
organ traffickers
It would be easy to dismiss
Sutovic as grief-crazed,
desperate to refute claims
that her son was a heroin
addict who died as a result
of his own actions. Except
there is compelling
evidence, accepted by
human rights organisation
Amnesty International,
several forensic and
medical experts, former
senior police officers and, more recently, the Serbian judiciary, that Petar’s death was suspicious.
Prior to these tragic events, Susan Sutovic was a prominent human rights lawyer. Working in
Britain, she had gained a reputation for legally assisting those who had opposed the government of
former president Slobodan Milosevic. She had many dangerous enemies. So, in July 2004, after
repeated prevarications by both the British and Serbian authorities, Susan decided to go to Belgrade
herself, with two private detectives, both of whom were former police officers and experts in
murder investigations.
The detectives thoroughly examined the apartment in which Petar died and found blood in the
bedroom, hall, bathroom and kitchen, suggesting there had been a violent struggle. This conclusion
was lent extra weight when Susan finally saw the photographs taken by police on the night Petar
died, which showed Petar’s face badly beaten and his bed soaked in blood.
Subsequent tests also revealed that the brown liquid in the spoon on Petar’s bedside table –
supposedly heroin – was in actual fact holy oil from Jerusalem that Petar carried with him in a small
glass bottle, and the morphine in his blood was not the type produced by heroin, but the type
associated with a prescription painkiller, Tramadol, which Petar had been using since a road traffic
accident in 2000. Susan believes whoever killed Petar beat him up, changed his clothes, rearranged
the room to make it look like he’d taken an overdose and then, at some point, took his heart to sell
on the black market.
Before her son died, Sutovic ran a successful legal practice and tells me her life was full and happy.
These days she mostly devotes her time to uncovering the truth of Petar's death.
Chain-smoking, Sutovic pushes the police photographs of Petar towards me. “You can see my son,”
she says. “Could you believe what they did to me, that the pathologist said there were no injuries?
There’s blood everywhere, his nose is badly broken and split at the bridge, there are blood bubbles
in the corner of his mouth that suggests he was still alive when the photograph was taken.”
I ask who she believes killed him. “All I know is that he was murdered. I remember Petar saying to
me, ‘If you can learn to live in Serbia you can live anywhere in the jungle.’ You expect corruption
there. I did not expect I would have to battle for justice here in Britain.”
Last year the first case of illegal organ harvesting in Britain was unveiled by the Salvation Army,
which provides support to victims of human trafficking. In a report, the organisation said a criminal
gang had brought an unnamed woman into the country with the intention of removing her organs
and selling them on to patients desperate for a transplant. It was unclear from the report whether the
plot was uncovered before the organ removal took place, but the signs are clear: international organ
trafficking is a growing trade.
The growth is down to two factors. First, a reduction in the number of legitimate organs available
for transplant – due, in part, to better seatbelt legislation, which has cut the number of healthy
young adults dying prematurely in road traffic accidents. And, second, an increase in the number of
people waiting for transplants which have become more routine in recent years. As a result,
organised criminals can now make a fortune from unethical clinics who will buy a heart, kidney or
pancreas for wealthy patients.
It is now possible to order an organ on the internet. It’s also possible, if you are poor, desperate, and
willing to part with, say, a kidney, to broker a deal with traffickers. Recent research by the World
Health Organisation (WHO) found that traffickers illegally obtain 7,000 kidneys each year around
the world.
Organ trafficking operates in various ways. Victims can be kidnapped and forced to give up an
organ; some, out of financial desperation, agree to sell an organ; or they are duped into believing
they need an operation and the organ is removed without their knowledge. Some victims are
murdered to order if a large sum has been paid in advance. This is what Susan Sutovic thinks
happened to her son.
This illegal trade has risen to such a level that an estimated 10,000 black-market operations
involving purchased human organs now take place annually – more than one every hour –
according to WHO. It estimates that organ trafficking accounts for five to 10 per cent of all kidney
transplants worldwide.
Children, especially those from poor backgrounds or children with disabilities, are often targeted. In
May this year, an eight-year-old British schoolgirl died at a clinic in India, and her family say they
suspect she was “murdered” by medics intent on harvesting her organs. Gurkiren Kaur Loyal’s
parents took her to see a doctor in the Punjab, when she began suffering from dehydration, and
within seconds of receiving an injection she collapsed and died. During the post mortem, Gurkiren’s
organs were removed and have not been returned. The Birmingham coroner told the family that
without them, or the Indian post mortem report, he is unable to record a cause of death.
But the most grievous case so far unocovered is in the former Yugoslav republic of Kosovo. Last
month five men were convicted of involvement in an organ-trafficking ring that performed at least
24 illegal kidney transplants at the Medicus clinic on the outskirts of the capital, Pristina. Lutfi
Dervishi, the clinic’s director, and his son, Arban, were sentenced to eight and seven years
respectively. They had promised donor victims about £12,500 each for kidneys that were then sold
on the black market for as much as £84,000 a time, but donors had often gone unpaid and, in the
words of the lead prosecutor, Jonathan Ratel, were “literally cast aside at the airport”.
The case came to light in late 2008 when a young Turkish man, Yilmaz Altun, collapsed at Pristina
airport before boarding a flight to Istanbul. Doctors discovered a large, fresh wound on his abdomen
and he later admitted he’d struck a deal with the clinic to have his left kidney removed. When
police arrived at Medicus they found an elderly Israeli man on his way to the operating theatre to
receive Altun’s kidney. Most of the organs harvested by Medicus had been sold to recipients in
Israel, Canada, Poland and Germany.
Eulex, Europe’s rule of law mission to Kosovo, which brought the case, is now investigating
whether any government figures were involved in the scandal. Nato documents, leaked in 2011,
claimed Kosovo’s prime minister, Hashim Thaçi, was the head of a “mafia-like” network
responsible for organ trafficking and other criminal activities.
Lutfi Dervishi, who was convicted of
illegally harvesting organs at his Medicus
clinic, in Kosovo
Prices vary, but a heart can
fetch up to £1million. And
parts are not only used for
transplants; there is a
demand for illicit
experimentation on whole
cadavers by unethical
scientists, as well as a
market in hip and knee
replacements. Penises and
foetuses have been used in
juju rituals, also known as
“black magic”, and used to instill terror into vulnerable victims. Last year a Nigerian-born man
living in Kent was convicted of trafficking children into prostitution whom he had initially
subjected to juju.
In Britain, it is illegal to sell an organ, although some desperate folk have been tempted. (With at
least a million people worldwide waiting for a kidney transplant at any given time, the demand is
unquestionably out there.)
One man attempted to sell his kidney on eBay, only to have it pulled by the site – but not before the
price reached $5,750. And in 2011, 24-year-old Nicky Johnson, from Stockport, placed an advert on
a Russian website, offering to donate a kidney “if the money was right”. One of more than a dozen
Brits on the site, Johnson said he would travel abroad for surgery. The operation takes up to three
hours and requires a two-day stay in hospital. Post-operative infection is a serious risk.
In one of the most tragic cases to come to light, a disabled single mother in Spain was found
attempting to auction off one of her kidneys, corneas, a lung and a piece of her liver online because
she cannot afford her monthly rent and is facing eviction.
The inquest into the death of Petar Sutovic opened in London in 2004. An open verdict was
recorded after concluding Petar had died from an overdose of morphine. “It was the wrong result,
and not based on the evidence available,” says Sutovic. After a two-year campaign, during which
she, along with private detectives, gathered huge amounts of new information, Susan was granted a
second inquest, which she hoped would return a verdict of unlawful killing. But the inquest never
happened, because legal arguments ensued about whether or not it was necessary to exhume Petar’s
body.
The newly appointed coroner had applied for exhumation of the body after the Metropolitan Police
gave the view that it was crucial to any new investigation. But Sutovic, supported by Petar’s brother
and father, strongly opposed the move on religious grounds. The family argued that the truth about
Petar’s death could be established by evidence that had already been put before the coroner, as well
as by other avenues of inquiry that would not require a third post mortem. To date, over £1 million
of public funds have been spent arguing about the inquests and exhumation.
Today, Susan Sutovic continues her fight for justice and has instructed Belgrade-based lawyer
Djuro Cepic to represent her. Cepic tells me he is hopeful that the truth will soon emerge, and that
the Serbian High Court has just granted his request to open a full investigation into the
circumstances surrounding Petar’s death. “This is very good because it will involve interviewing the
doctors who first dealt with this young man’s body, hopefully with myself and Ms Sutovic present,”
says Cepic.
I ask Sutovic what it is she hopes for. She answers clearly and without hesitation. “I can’t bring my
son back but he has a right to a soul, to rest in peace. This was a young man in the prime of his life,
and I know he did not die of an overdose, and there are those out there who know the truth. How
can either of us rest until we find out exactly what happened on that night?”