The story has a familiar ring: a convicted killer was executed with a bullet to the head, and his body rushed away in a van. That day, a hospital bought the corpse and transplanted the kidneys into waiting patients.
Such claims of unauthorized organ-harvesting from Chinese prisoners are common among human rights groups and pro-democracy advocates.
But this macabre tale is extraordinary because it came from a state newspaper -- directly contradicting official claims that such transplants don't take place, and that most organs for transplant are donated.
However, the story has apparently cost the newspaper reporter his job.
A reporter for the Metropolitan Consumption News in the southern city of Nanchang said Yao Xiaohong was fired for conducting "illegal research," a human rights group said yesterday. The reporter, who wouldn't give his name, denied the firing was related to reporting on organ sales.
But the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said Yao ran the news department at the paper and led a team of journalists from the paper in investigating the organ-selling claims.
Their article alleged that a court in Jiangxi Province's Pingxiang county sold the body of executed murderer Fu Xinrong to a hospital, which transplanted his kidneys into a patient.
Fu was sentenced to death for killing his newborn son and his girlfriend's parents, the Today Family Weekly said in an article posted on the Web site of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party.
Yao was questioned by police shortly after the story was published and fired last month, the center said.
Fu was executed in May last year. A year later, his family had yet to receive a court notice to pick up his body or ashes.
The executed man's sister, Fu Mulan, learned from an anonymous caller that his body had been sold -- news that drove their father to commit suicide, the Family Weekly report said.
A prosecutor said he tried to stop four men from taking Fu's body after the execution. The men said they were from Nanchang and had made "arrangements" with the court to take the corpse, the report said.
The van was traced to a hospital in Nanchang. An unidentified hospital official told the paper a body arrived on May 30 last year and that surgeons removed the kidneys for transplant.
The official claimed not to know the identity of the body, but said money had been paid for it, according to the newspaper.
Fu's sister said she never signed required organ donation forms.
The Metropolitan Consumption News reporter claimed Yao got into trouble with authorities while investigating a story, but declined to say what the topic of his research was. He was found in violation of reporting rules and sacked, the reporter said.
The reporter said the paper, located in Nanchang, has attracted the attention of authorities before: A staff member was sacked in June after he passed on information about a deadly kindergarten fire in Nanchang to a reporter for French news agency Agence France-Presse, he said.
A number of editors have been removed from their posts for authorizing reports on sensitive subjects such as corruption and government incompetence.
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