Chinese inmates’ organs for sale to Britons

GUANGZHOU, China — A Chinese company has begun marketing kidneys, livers and other organs from executed prisoners to sick Britons in need of transplants.

Hospital Doctor, a British magazine, earlier this month reported that a firm called Transplants International was trying to recruit British patients.

Operations were to be carried out at Guangzhou Air Force Military Hospital by doctors from a hospital affiliated with the nearby Sun Yat-sen Southern University.

Guangzhou is the fast-growing metropolis near Hong Kong in the heart of China’s southern manufacturing zone.

The Telegraph confirmed the story in an interview with the hospital’s Dr. Na Ning, in which a reporter posed as someone interested in getting involved as a business venture.

“We can sign an agreement,” Dr. Na said over a business lunch in a smart Western restaurant.

“We should be cautious — this is sensitive. There is no need to bring in lawyers or consultants. We should do the agreement on trust.”

Dr. Na is one of many doctors involved in a growing organ-transplant trade that has caused revulsion around the world. In China, the practice raises few eyebrows.

Executed prisoners are the main source of organs used in the country’s transplant operations, thousands of which are conducted each year.

Up to one in 10 recipients are believed to be from other nations, mainly from elsewhere in Asia. There is also a market in Saudi Arabia, according to Imad, a Jordanian working as a translator at the military hospital.

“All the operations on foreigners in China are now carried out at military hospitals,” Dr. Na said.

China’s Health Ministry banned its own hospitals from taking part in organ transplants from prisoners after an international outcry over the practice in the 1990s.

Military hospitals are independent of the Health Ministry.

Dr. Na said military hospitals also have access to the Public Security Bureau — the police. This means transplants that are a good match for potential donors are more readily available from the execution grounds.

Foreigners, after an initial checkup, are guaranteed an organ will arrive within two weeks.

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