by Emilee Gaebler
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
BRASÍLIA, Brazil – After 25 years a sentence has finally been handed down in a criminal case involving illegal organ harvesting. Last Thursday a judge sentenced Doctor Rui Sacramento, Doctor Pedro Torrecillas and Doctor Mariano Fiore Jr. to seventeen years and six months each in prison.
The three doctors were charged with removing kidneys from four patients that were not really dead. The patients had signed off on being organ donors in the event of their respective deaths. The victims were patients in the time period from September to December of 1986. They were incorrectly declared brain dead by neurosurgeon Mariano Fiore Jr. who then authorized the removal of the organs.
Torrecillas and Sacramento were the doctors who removed the organs and prepared them for transplant. Following the removal of the organs, the patients did actually die. Another neurosurgeon, Antonio de Carvalho Monteiro was also accused but died last year.
The organs were harvested at a public hospital and then sent to a private organ transplant facility. At public hospitals, transplants are free but the waitlists are long. At the private facilities the organ transplant process can be accelerated for those wealthy enough to pay the price. For each kidney, it is estimated that US $41,000 was paid.
Two organ recipients testified in the trial that they paid that amount for a kidney transplant at the private facility. Both noted that they were not informed of where the organ donation was from.
The case first came to light in December of 1986 when the head Doctor at the University of Taubate’s medical school noticed irregularities in records regarding organ transplants. He investigated further into the transplants and the team of doctors who performed them then turned the information over to the Federal Council of Medicine.
The state prosecutor on the case, Marcio Friggi de Carvalho said that the victims, “simply did not have the diagnosis of brain death.”
The doctor’s defense attorney, Sergio Salgado Badaro told the jury, “[I]f you convict them, you will be the first jury in the country to convict doctors for killing people who were already dead.”
When the sentence was handed down, Baldaro noted that he respected the jury’s decision but his clients were going to appeal. The doctors will be permitted to continue practicing while their appeal is considered.
Family members of the victims present when the sentence was handed down cried and hugged each other. The decision has long been awaited and Brazilian authorities have termed it extremely complex in order to explain the 25 year wait. The Brazilian criminal justice system is known to be a slow machine and it is not uncommon for cases to take years or even decades to be decided.
For more information, please see;
Bio Edge – Brazilian Transplant Doctors Convicted After 25 Years – 22 October 2011
CTV News – Doctors Guilty of Harvesting Organs of Live Patients – 21 October 2011
WHDH News – Brazil Doctors Found Guilty of Killing Patients – 21 October 2011
MSNBC News – Docs Charged For Removing Organs From Live Patients – 17 October 2011
