Officials operating under the Assad regime allegedly removed organs from prisoners and transplanted them into ill members of families affiliated with the former regime, Syria’s Justice Ministry claimed last week.
The allegation was presented last week alongside footage of alleged confessions from officers and doctors said to have participated in the operations.
The former military professionals and medical staff admitted to carrying out operations on detainees abducted by Assad’s intelligence service, which saw kidneys and livers implanted into patients connected with senior officials.
A former doctor at Damascus’s Tishreen Military Hospital claimed he performed surgery to remove the liver of a healthy prisoner in Branch 215, which was said to have been destined for a first lieutenant in the Republican Guard whose father was reportedly close to Bashar al-Assad.
The detainee died within minutes of the organ’s removal, and the lieutenant was said to have passed after complications from the surgery.
'Horror hospital' took organs from detainees under Assad's Syria
The international media has also long painted the institution as the “horror hospital” for the long list of human rights abuses committed there.
Agence France-Presse reported last year the testimonies of former detainees beaten in the hospital to the point of immobility, and Human Rights Watch warned of torture and extrajudicial killings by hospital staff and Assad officials more than a decade ago.
Attorney General Hassan al-Turba claimed that Tishreen had been used as an extension of Assad’s intelligence, according to Syrian state broadcaster Al-Ikhbariah.
"So far, the information we have obtained about the detainee comes from individuals who worked at the hospital before defecting," he said.
A Syrian expert who asked to remain anonymous told The Jerusalem Post that he was advised while imprisoned by the former regime in 2012 to avoid being transferred to the hospital, claiming there were fears his organs would be trafficked.
Detained in 2012 alongside around 15 fellow staff members from the Violations and Documentation Center, he was taken to the 4th Division, led by Bashar al-Assad’s brother, where the difficult conditions led him to become ill. On the verge of asking the guards to transfer him to a hospital, fellow prisoners began warning him that those sent to the hospital “never come back” and informed him of the rumors surrounding organ-smuggling rings.
He noted that there was little to prove the claims at the time, though he is glad he heeded the rumors.
Only 10% of those needing an organ transplant in Syria are recipients, according to a study published by the peer-reviewed journal Nature in January, which found there was a significant shortage of trust in the healthcare systems available, in addition to religious constraints.
Cultural and religious restrictions on organ donations have largely contributed to a shortage of donors, making organ trafficking a more profitable business.
The Violation Documentation Center complained more than 10 years ago that both soldiers and civilians killed had their organs harvested without consent, to be sold in countries like India, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, according to the Turkish media site Anadolu Agency. Sources told the Syrian Observer that such practices were covered up by the former regime and that high-ranking officials had been largely involved in the network.