BMJ 2007;334:973 (12 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39206.395370.4E
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Israeli transplant surgeon is arrested for suspected organ trafficking
Merav Sarig
Jerusalem
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
A leading kidney transplant surgeon from Israel has been arrested in Turkey on suspicion of involvement in an illegal organ transplantation ring that performed operations at a private hospital in Istanbul.
Zaki Shapira, former head of the transplant centre at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, to the north east of Tel Aviv, was arrested in the course of a gun battle between police and armed robbers at the hospital on 27 April. Turkish doctors and hospital staff were also arrested.
Turkish sources say that police officers who searched the hospital after the shooting discovered that it had been shut down by court order a month earlier for illegal transplantations. During the search the officers found four patients—three of them Israelis—at the hospital. Two had donated organs for transplantation and one had received a transplant. The patients were transferred to other hospitals in Istanbul.
"During the operations, robbers attacked the
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