The trial for the largest gang accused of trafficking in human kidneys in China was canceled recently, on the same day that it was announced that Bo Xilai, the disgraced official, would be stripped of his position in the Communist Party’s legislature, the National People’s Congress.
The Legal Evening News reported that the 15 defendants who are suspected of involvement in the organized sale of human organs have been arraigned in the Haidian Court for trial.
At 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 26, the defendants’ families and their attorney arrived for the 10:00 a.m. hearing.
At 10:50 a.m., the defendants’ attorney was told that the trial had been canceled because one of the defendants was sick and needed treatment.
The Chinese Caijing Magazine published an article on Sept. 10 titled “Behind the Illegal Kidney Trafficking: Organs Harvested by Sanjia Hospital.” It reported that Zheng Wei was the kidney broker and instigator of the crime.
The case involved the illegal removal of 51 kidneys, which were sold and transplanted into patients, netting a profit of 10.3 million yuan ($1.6 million). The 15 defendants, ranging in age from 20 to 56, include organ traffickers, doctors, and the vice president of the Tongshan Second People’s Hospital in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province.
Zheng Wei reportedly rented a villa, attached medical facilities, and oversaw the removal of up to six kidneys per day. Chinese media said that officials and criminals conspired to create the kidney trafficking network.
Chinese media reports indicated that Zheng Wei harvested the organs of death row prisoners who had not actually given permission to have their organs removed.
Using forged permission documents, prisoners’ organs were illegally harvested at the makeshift facility and subsequently accepted by Sanjia Hospital doctors, who transplanted the organs into recipients.
The fact that the trial was canceled with little explanation on the same day that the announcement about Bo Xilai was made, caused some analysts to suspect that the decision to cancel the trial was linked to Bo’s case.
In early August China’s state-run media reported that since April police had arrested 28 groups engaged in trafficking in organs in 18 provinces.
Analysts have speculated that the publicity given these criminal gangs was a first step taken by some leaders in the Chinese regime who favor disclosing the atrocity of forced, live organ harvesting.
The criminal gangs have been accused of paying individuals for removing one kidney or of working with prisons to remove organs from executed death row prisoners.
According to investigators, the atrocity of forced, live organ harvesting involves taking prisoners of conscience, who are mostly Falun Gong practitioners, and removing their organs, killing them.
In their book Bloody Harvest, the former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour and the Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas estimate that in the years 2000-2005 41,500 transplantation operations were done in China for which the most likely source was Falun Gong practitioners.
According to the Chinese deputy minister of health China does 10,000 transplantations per year. Matas has estimated that only 1,000 of those organs come from death row inmates, leaving 9,000 organs per year to be supplied by forced, live organ harvesting.
Read the original Chinese article.
Editor’s Note: When Chongqing’s former top cop, Wang Lijun, fled for his life to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, he set in motion a political storm that has not subsided. The battle behind the scenes turns on what stance officials take toward the persecution of Falun Gong. The faction with bloody hands—the officials former CCP head Jiang Zemin promoted in order to carry out the persecution—is seeking to avoid accountability for their crimes and to continue the campaign. Other officials are refusing to participate in the persecution any longer. Events present a clear choice to the officials and citizens of China, as well as people around the world: either support or oppose the persecution of Falun Gong. History will record the choice each person makes.
Read the original Chinese article.
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