Organ Trafficking Part: 2
Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network
Show Name: Speaking for the Silenced
Episode 7: Organ Trafficking: Part 2
Tune into this week’s episode of #SpeakingfortheSilenced!
You are listening to Speaking for the Silenced podcast with your host(s) Jacqueline Sun.
In this episode of Speaking for the Silenced, we will end a two-part segment discussing organ trafficking. Today, we will focus on a real-life incident of trafficking that occurred in Kosovo in 2008.
Segment 1: Background
- Victim’s name is Yilmaz Altun, located in Pristina, Kosovo
- Fainted in middle of airport due to wound from organ removal
- It was found that the organ donation was conducted a clinic in Pristina called Medicus
- Medicus was a chain of organ trafficking clinics that were designed solely for the purpose of making profit.
- Preyed on the poor and vulnerable
- Crime ring was operated by Lutfi Dervishi and his son, both Kosovo physicians.
- Actual organ removal was conducted by Yusuf Ercin Sonmez, a Turkish surgeon
- The main operators of Medicus had been on the run for some time, evading capture since their operations were exposed in 2008.
- However, a few have been incarcerated
Segment 2: Even more twisted origins
- The Medicus Case has an even more complex twist
- Council of Europe found connections with Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
- Terrorist group that sought to seprate Kosovo from Yugoslavia
- The KLA reportedly began organ trafficking in 1999
- People and authorities have even began to suspect that Hashim Thaci, Prime minister of
- So how is the link between Medicus and the KLA established?
- Kidneys harvested from the Serbian captives were transported to Sonmez, the doctor who was involved in the transplants in Medicus
- Public hoped that Medicus could be linked back to the KLA and ex Prime Minister Thaci.
Music Credits:
Brooklyn and the Bridge by Nico Staf
- At the Restaurant by Monolog Rockstars
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Sources:
- https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-organ-trafficking-conviction-in-kosovo
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/01/08/a-cruel-harvest-of-the-poor-israeli-allegedly-behind-human-organ-black-market-arrested-in-cyprus/
In episode 7 of Speaking for the Silenced, we will end a two-part segment discussing organ trafficking.
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