Accusations
- Organ theft
- Illegal sale of organs in global markets
- Abduction of children
- Falsification of medical reports
Yehuda Hiss (Hebrew: יהודה היס; born 1946) is a retired Israeli pathologist. He served as the Chief Pathologist at the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine between 1988 and possibly as late as 2005.[1][2][3][citation needed] Hiss has also served as part of the faculty for the Terrorism and Medicine Program at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at IDC Herzliya and in the Department of Pathology for the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.[4][5]
As director of the Institute at Abu Kabir, the only place in Israel authorized to conduct autopsies in cases of unnatural death, Hiss conducted the autopsies of and authored the pathology reports for notable figures, including Yitzhak Rabin and Rachel Corrie, among others.[6][7][8][9] His position as director was a subject of controversy.[10] He was dismissed from this position after the legal system took up some of the charges against him.[10][11] Investigations of the newspaper Al-Ahram, revealed that Hiss had removed organs, bones and other tissues from corpses, against the expressed wishes of family, and had sold many of the organs he removed to medical institutions and universities.[11] He remained the chief pathologist of the Institute and regained his position as director before being dismissed by the Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman on Oct 15 2012.[3]
Yehuda Hiss was born in Poland shortly after the end of World War II. His family immigrated to Israel when he was ten years old. He studied medicine in Israel, Italy, Austria, Britain and the United States.[12]
Investigations
According to Rebecca Dube in the Forward, allegations that Hiss and his lab were taking organs from corpses without permission and using them for research or selling them to medical schools were substantiated by the Israeli government.[10] In 1998, Alistair Sinclair, a Scottish tourist apprehended on suspicion of dealing drugs, died in a holding cell at Ben Gurion International Airport, apparently having hanged himself.[10][17] After an autopsy overseen by Hiss, the body was returned to his family; a second autopsy performed by pathologists at the University of Glasgow found that the heart and a small bone at the base of his tongue were missing.[10] Jonathan Rosenblum reported that the missing bone from his neck was considered necessary to confirming that he had hanged himself as stated, and that the Sinclair family believed his heart had been used for transplant.[17] The scandal was publicized by media in Israel and Scotland after the family sued.[10]
Rosenblum, writing in The Jerusalem Post in October 2000 cited a 12-page investigative report in November 1999 by the local Tel Aviv newspaper Ha’ir claiming that medical students at Abu Kabir under Hiss’ direction were allowed to practice on bodies sent there for autopsy, and body parts were transferred for transplant without permission from the families.[17] In January 2001, Yediot Aharonot claimed the institute headed by Hiss had been involved in “organ sales” of body parts to universities and medical schools for research and training, citing evidence including the “price listings” for body parts.[18]
Israel’s Ministry of Health convened a committee to investigate the claims which found that Hiss had been involved for years in the sale of illegally removed body parts to medical schools.[10][18] Hiss was never charged with any crime, but was forced to step down from running the state morgue in 2004. According to Rebecca Dube, “the final straw, apparently, was when the body of a youth killed in a road accident was gnawed upon by a rat in Hiss’s lab.”[10] The state investigation revealed no proof of Hiss specifically targeting Palestinians and that “every body, whether Israeli or Palestinian, was fair game for organ harvesting.”[10]
Hiss ceased being the director of the institute in 2005 when allegations of a trade in organs resurfaced.[11] After Hiss admitted to having removed parts from 125 bodies without authorization, and following a plea bargain with the State of Israel, Israel’s attorney-general, decided not to press criminal charges.[11] Hiss was given only a reprimand and continued to hold his position as chief pathologist at Abu Kabir and eventually regained his position as director.[11][19]
Jonathan Cook writing in Al-Ahram Weekly in 2009 recalls Hiss’ history in connection with the Aftonbladet allegations.[11]