Ablation of organs from hostages in Chechnya

Ever since the very first «findings» of bodies of young men in Chechnya, who were detained at checkpoints and during so-called «cleansings» and whose organs were later ablated, and ever since the rumors about the bloody business of the Russian command started spreading – about selling the organs of hostages for transplantation, - I have been carefully watching for every case of such a type. I must admit that at first, as a doctor who has an idea about the technique and the process of transplantation, I was regarding such reports with no trust whatsoever.

Sure, not because I had doubts in ethic adequacy of such barbarianism to any moral or ethical qualities of the Russian leadership. I thought that in these conditions in Chechnya it was impossible if you consider technical complexity of the process of removing and transplanting the organs.

But irrefutable facts, - bodies with missing organs – were pointing that the young men taken hostage by the Russian invaders were undoubtedly subjected to medical ablation of organs possibly for selling and transplanting. And I started asking myself questions more and more often.

The «route» of the organ from donor to recipient is a pretty intricate and laborious process that includes thorough examination of the donor with the tests on compatibility of tissues, ablating the organ, storage, transportation and transplantation. Therefore in order to carry out the process of ablation and transporting the organs, at least a permanent medical facility with personnel and a lab must be available, let alone other ancillary services.  It is incredibly difficult to conceal such a facility in the basements of destroyed houses of Jokhar, where Chechen fighters run the show at night. Then where is that facility and how do they manage to keep its activities secret?

Moreover, it is a known fact that Russian groups operating in Chechnya have their own bloody turf wars between one another over less profitable kinds of business. For example, they start bloody skirmishes with one another and kill one another by hundreds over controlling oil pits or over dividing household items plundered from the houses of peaceful civilians. Thanks to their greed we are finding out secret encouraging orders of the Russian command legitimizing the crimes against peaceful civilians.

If this kind of bloody business really exists, and if this is not a myth, then how is secrecy being kept around it? Why the facilities that function in the extremely secret conditions are leaving traces of their activities in the form of dead bodies with missing organs dumped near towns and villages? Maybe some of the Russians thus want to tell Chechens about the grave crimes and present the facts? However strange it may sound, some individuals who did not completely lose their human nature can still be found among that breed.

If it is not ablation of organs for transplantation, then why do the organs get cut out so thoroughly, - mainly kidney, liver, spleen, pancreas, heart and lungs? It is unlikely that all of it can be explained with morbid actions of sick Russian «military» with sadistic tendencies, even though it is a known fact that there are a lot of them in the ranks of the Russian gangs in Chechnya.

Isn’t all of it – openly demonstrated facts of sadism in the form of deadly poison injections, mutilated and «ripped» corpses, beheading the bodies, blowing up live humans and dead bodies, - an evasive maneuver from a more vile of a crime?

And actually, what is the need for these facilities to operate in Chechnya, since Chechens get captured and transported outside Chechnya on a mass scale, and then disappear without a trace, which is a usual everyday practice of the invaders? Doesn’t it mean that the traces of ablation, sale and transplantation of organs of Chechen hostages must be searched not only in Chechnya, but in Russian clinics as well, which are controlled by the secret services?

In search for answers to these questions I had to talk to many of my colleagues in Chechnya as well as in Russia; I also had to talk to the collaborators, figuring that they have no reasons to hide this information.

What did I notice while talking to my colleagues? Terrible fear to be heard by someone «on the outside». Strong requests not to reveal their last or first names. People in Chechnya and in Russia have changed greatly. The fear of the Stalin times came back to them. But just as it was during those recent times, the people are trying to remain humans, while overcoming their fear, - any way they can.

Even employees of the so-called «health ministry» of Chechnya’s puppet administration do not make it a secret that ablation of organs from hostages for transplantation purposes is real. What surprised me and satisfied me was that they have gathered a great deal of proofs that can serve as the evidence for such accusations, even though they do not have enough courage to publicize them.

It turned out that Chechen doctors got irrefutable proofs of ablation of internal from the hostages in the beginning of the year 2000, when they examined relatively intact dead bodies that the invaders dumped near the roads. The bodies had traces of surgical operations, i.e. they were autopsied for the purpose of extracting some organs. The doctors who examined the dead bodies claim that the wounds on the corpses were not a result of a postmortem examination or an autopsy, as the Russian invaders hurried to irresponsibly claim, but these cuts were left after the surgeries performed on live humans.

Let me quote some excerpts from the conclusion made in one statement after a body examination, where the doctors testify:

«…As it can be seen from the sections of burns on the wound’s tissue, typical for burns left by a cauterodyne, which surgeons use during operations in order to stop vessels in the wound from bleeding, the wound in the area of the corpse’s abdomen is a result of a surgery called laparotomy, performed when the patient was still alive, just before the death. … Besides, sections of extravasations (hematomas), typical for surgeries on live tissues, are present on parietal peritoneum in the area of the laparotomy wound and in the area of the kidney projection.

… Segment of the lower hollow vein in the projection of the kidney’s portal vein has been resected; distant and proximal ends of the lower hollow vein on the resected section are sutured with a surgical stapling instrument,… while the rest of the organs of the abdominal cavity are cut out coarsely and were possibly removed by using a common. There are no other sections where the vessels would be tied up… In the area of clavicle on the right-hand side there is a punctated wound with subcutaneous hematoma, which points at the subclavian vein catheterization as an anesthetic aid during the surgery…»

It allowed the doctors to make a conclusion: «… Traces of ablation of kidney (possibly for transplantation purposes) while the patient was still alive are present on the corpse». (Please not that this is the record made by a doctor who examined the corpse only superficially, and during a forensic examination a whole lot of other proofs that the patient was alive would have been found, and it will not be that difficult for the doctors to confirm this particular statement or other statements once the body is exhumed).

The doctors notified the relatives of the victims and the so-called «ministry of health» concerning the examination results. «Health minister» of the puppet administration was afraid to bring up the issue on these facts, as the doctors believe. Certainly, it is clear why these facts are silenced and it is hard to blame anybody for it. There is a real danger that the witnesses may disappear without a trace also. But the doctors believe that in spite of it, hushing up these facts is equal to involvement in that grave crime against your own people.

«Mass mutilation of bodies of the people killed after being detained at the checkpoints and during «cleansings» cannot be explained by the actions of individual soldiers with sadistic tendencies only. The sadism has an established nature of an order», Chechen doctors believe.

There may be various goals, but the main goal in their opinion is to intimidate the people, even though they do not rule out that the perpetrators thus want to hide the traces of their criminal business – the traces of selling human organs.

I think here it would be appropriate to quote the opinion of the doctor who had contacts with the doctors from Russian army bases:

«The program of a psychotherapist working in the military bases consists mainly of psychological suggestion of sadistic tendencies to a soldier», he says. «On a daily basis a psychotherapist is persistently suggesting to the soldier how good it is to kill Chechens, while showing photos of mutilated corpses and saying: 'Look, if it wasn't for you, o Russian solider who exterminated these un-men, we would have been lying here instead of them! Don't even think that you're killing a human, you are killing your enemy! Their children, their women, their elderly are your enemies, the enemies of your children, the enemies of your country! Even the young of those wild beasts are dreaming of driving a knife into your back. Kill them and be glad that there are less of your enemies remaining!»

«Then they show them pictures of human anatomy, as if they offer to check «the right locations of organs» on the corpses of these «un-men». This is the way a soldier gets tendencies of a sadist and a murderer instilled in him».

In the doctor’s opinion, the job of the psychotherapists is aimed at hiding the traces of medical ablation of organs:

«First, after seeing a ripped up corpse a Russian sadist and murderer, trained by a psychotherapist, is unlikely to become interested in what the corpse was slashed for;

Second, the population is getting confused by mass mutilation of corpses and takes it as a result of sadism by Russian gangs».

«Only on 5-10% of the corpses you can discover traces of medical ablation of organs, even though the scope of the sales of transplants taken from Chechen hostages is huge», – one of the officials of the health ministry believes. – «The ‘mystery’ that this criminal business is veiled with is no mystery at all. Just as long as the FSB runs the country, no one will ever dare seriously investigate the blatant facts of that terrible crime against humanity. Under the FSB control coroners and forensic experts will not give out a single document without FSB censoring the document and making corrections in it. The authenticity of such conclusions is extremely doubtful. Therefore we have to go no further than just external examination of the body, which is not always enough to prove that medical ablation of organs took place».

«The FSB benefits from «unsubstantiated» accusations that Chechens are bringing up against Russian military command selling human organs», – a head physician from one of the Chechen hospitals says. – «…because uninvestigated facts are no more than rumors. Therefore there is a chance that on a regular basis the FSB throws in some facts – corpses with organs taken out, mixed with the bodies of the victims of sadists and «rippers» – into the lawlessness zone under their control, where the result of investigation of any crime will be manageable and predictable. All of it is being done so that the world gets used to «unsubstantiated and groundless» accusations by the Chechen side against the Russian army charged with selling human organs taken from hostages. If the state admits that its soldiers are sick sadists, and actively helps this opinion get stronger, then something more vile and more terrible may be behind it».

«The ablation of internal from hostages happens not in Chechnya, and not even in any of the adjacent republics of provinces, otherwise it would have been exposed in no time», – one famous collaborator believes.

«The hostages are taken to Moscow or to the Moscow Province (Oblast), i.e. where they will be least searched for and where there is tighter security at the facilities where they are held. The fact that there are no live witnesses testifies that these surgeries are performed by the FSB from beginning to end, and this is the way they do it – without leaving any witnesses. For some reason the corpses of the hostage donors after the ablations are transported back where they came from and dumped near the villages and roads, I can’t understand why. Maybe Putin is still thinking about the consequences and guessing that sooner or later he will have to answer for it. It will be more difficult to answer for a disappeared hostage when there are facts that the hostage was detained by state power structures, so it is the state, i.e. Putin, who will has to be held responsible for that».

«I am strongly hoping that in the nearest future I will be able to find out a lot about this horrible crime. Yes, I have my own view on the Republic’s political structure, but unlike Kadyrov and his circle, I am no enemy to my people».

According to the Russian colleagues, over 60 clinics and institutions in Russia and abroad are using the «services» of hostage donors from Chechnya. In Moscow alone there are 16 of these «customers»! The lists also contain clinics in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus. When the Clinic of Albert Ludwig University (Germany) was mentioned, it was sensational and speaks a lot.

The donors are transported abroad while they are still alive. In Moscow or in St. Petersburg the ordered organ gets ablated and then shipped to any part of the globe. It only takes a few hours, which allows swift delivery of a transplantable organ to the customer. And the customers have no inkling that the organs that are being shipped to them belong to the hostages from Chechnya.

Here are the organizations mentioned in this case most frequently:

Russian Army Medical College of Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (City of St. Petersburg),

N.N. Burdenko Central Military Hospital of Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation,

Scientific Research Institute of Transplantology and Artificial Organs of Russia’s Ministry of Health,

Russian Scientific Center of Surgery (of Russian Academy of Sciences),

Central Scientific X-Ray Radiological Institute of Russia’s Ministry of Health (City of St. Petersburg),

N.F. Sklifosovsky Scientific Research Institute of First Aid.

One of the Russian colleagues advised me to pay attention to one interesting fact.

As soon as they started talking about corpses with missing organs in Chechnya, it turned out that Putin and the Duma suddenly recalled and got the «Law on Transplanting Organs» out of the archive in order to add two insignificant sentences to it.

One of the sentences sounds like this: «[during the transplantation process] the person’s interests must prevail over the interests of the society or the science».

There is nothing you can say, the words are correct. According to my colleague, there was an intention implied here. It was not for the sake of these two sentences that the mass media kept reiterating on «humane and important» additions to the law. It was propaganda against the facts of grave crimes of Russian authorities that the Chechens had discovered. The propaganda was designed for the democratic West, who after hearing these «correct words» was just about to shed tears of affection with Putin’s humaneness and turned a deaf ear to the Chechen complaints right away. I don’t think that the West does not understand that the laws in Russia are written not to comply with them, but to cover a crime.

Russian doctors are noting progress at transplantology centers, although on the whole medicine keeps living in poverty as it has been to this day. Compared to 1999 the number of transplantation operations has increased three times. In some centers transplantation prices have been reduced by as low as 50%. My colleagues had a hard time explaining such a rise of the welfare of Russian transplantology in the middle of overall poverty. Although, they are noting that criminal sales of human organs for transplantation is acquiring threatening scale in Russia.

Chechen doctors see no miracle in the increased activities of Russian transplantation centers. In their opinion, over 30,000 young Chechens, who disappeared without a trace after being taken hostage by the Russian troops, were actually brought to Russia. They are held in special secret facilities run by the FSB and they are used in Russian clinics as donors for ablation, selling and transplantation of organs.

I talked to one of the Russian doctors who deal with transplantology. When I asked him whether he can feel any changes in Russian transplantology ever since the war in Chechnya started, he answered: «Yes, of course. If earlier we had to wait for months for a new donated organ to come in, then over the past two to three years there have been no problems getting one. The only problems are with a recipient’s paying capacity. I won’t be surprised at all that if the president issues a decree on free transplantation of organs to all who need them. Special mafia will not lose on that either, it will be laundering our budget money since the main clients of the «human organs suppliers» are not poor Russian institutes, but solvent foreign ones».

When I asked him: «Are there any Chechen citizens among the donors?» he answered with a refusal: «Sorry, I can’t tell you that. The reason is that instead of the information the majority of donors have codes in their accompanying documents, which is in compliance with Item 14 of the Law «prohibiting divulging information about the donor». Notorious «dictatorship of the Law» is hanging over that Item. Our tender-hearted patients, who out of their human feelings wanted to know whom they were obliged to for the salutary organ, could not get the name. Sometimes it happens that some people can guess who the ones under codes are. I think you guessed it too».

«Transplantology is one of the most profitable areas in medicine. One donor costs at least 0,000 and more. And a live donor who has no rights or name can bring a very large profit. Where there is big money involved, there is everything – blood, death and legalized crime. We all understand that we are automatically becoming accomplices in the crime of our own gangster state, and I hope it won’t be long».

I recalled crowds of women in Chechnya distraught with grief holding photos of their missing loved ones, meeting European officials with hope and with tears in their eyes asking them to help them find their son, their brother, their husband, and in my mind I addressed to them:

«No one will ever hear our supplications and even those who survived thanks to a transplanted organ of your son! Because our children are registered by numbers instead of last names, like it was in Nazi concentration camps!»

The religious world got terrified when the doctors offered to clone a human and use cloned organs to treat the sick. The condemning voice of Archbishop Alexis II was louder than anybody else’s. Putin and the Duma quickly concocted the law that taboos cloning a human and use it for «spare parts». The most interesting thing is that Putin motivated the topicality of that law by «ethic inadmissibility of cloning in the Russian society» !!! So, using Chechen hostages for selling their organs is then ethically acceptable for Putin’s society and the «God» of Archbishop Alexis II is pleased with it?

In this regard I have a question to the basic human rights institutions (UN, OSCE, PACE, and others) that have supported the farce undertaken by sellers of organs from hostages in the form of a «referendum» for Chechens the donors: Are you really deliberately offering all of us to go ahead and vote and legalize Putin’s business in Chechnya? If yes, then what was your share percentage-wise in it?

After Putin’s visit to France one of the Chechen journalists wrote: «The world made sure concerning Russian president’s passion for «transplantology» when in Brussels he offered journalists his services on ablating one of the organs. Europe pretended «not to understand» and recommended the journalists not to tease him with Chechnya, which meant: «Let him do whatever he wants to, as long as he doesn’t get mad and talk nonsense».

But really he was telling the truth. Really, Putin «knows places in Moscow», where donors doomed to death are held for selling their organs for transplantation. But Islamic fundamentalism has nothing to do with it, just like «Putin’s company» has nothing to do with ethics.

During Putin’s recent visit to France, President Jacques Chirac’s behavior showed that he understood him well in Brussels. While considering the guest’s passion for ablating organs, he took him to the company of Mayor of Paris, and he himself preferred to stay away from Putin. The journalists are claiming that Russian «transplantologist» did not understand the hint. Whatever it is, by playing its games of silent pretense and hints Europe

in the nearest future may have to see organs with labels marked «French», «German», «English», «Italian», etc. on the counters of «Putin’s bank of donated organs».

Never mind us, the Chechens, we need no sympathy. I think it’s time for the Europeans to think about their organs! There may not be enough Chechens for that soon. Europeans, you may be next!

Umar Khanbiyev,
Minister of Health of C.R.I.

Kavkaz-Center

2003-06-10 00:51:36

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Comment: To see also the the photographs of corpses found in mass graves undergone surgery click here.