Two Brazilian doctors have been sent to prison for selling contraband organs to the US as part of a suspected trafficking scheme, Brazilian law enforcement officials said on Friday.
The two men, Celso Roberto Scafi and Claudio Rogerio Carneiro Fernandes, are both urologists who practiced medicine in the state of Minas Gerais.
However, Brazilian officials allege they also were part of an organ-trafficking “mafia” in which kidneys, livers and other organs and body tissues were illegally removed from patients, some of whom were still alive, and sold.
The men were convicted at a trial in February last year, but appealed to a Brazilian higher court, which on Thursday upheld the lower court’s verdict.
The men were remanded into custody and are being held at a prison in Pocos de Caldas, 500km from state capital Belo Horizonte.
A Brazilian judge in the case last week sentenced the men to prison terms of 17 and 18 years, according to Brazilian news reports. Their licenses to practice medicine also have been revoked. Brazilian authorities said a search was underway for a third physician in the scheme, anesthesiologist Sergio Poli Gaspar, who failed to turn himself in to authorities and is considered a fugitive from justice.
The case dealt with a 10-year old boy, Paulo Veronesi Pavesi, whose organs were removed without permission and sent to the US after his accidental death in a fall.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so