Thailand's Prosecution Indicts Director and Doctors in Illegal Harvest and Sale of Human Organs by Phairath Khampha 24 March 2002 Thailand's prosecution agreed to indict three Vajiraprakarn hospital doctors and a former hospital director in the kidney-trading scandal which involved the harvest of organs from patients who were not yet clinically dead, but whom the doctors had arrogantly decided could not be saved because the families were too poor to pay for the required medical services to save their lives. Many of the patients died because the organs had been removed. In its decision, Dr Siroj Kanchanapanjapol, former director of the hospital, Dr Weeradet Lerddamrongluck, and Dr Vivat Thirapanit were indicted on a charge of colluding to murder patients so as to remove their kidneys for use in transplants. Another suspect, Dr Nanthawit Thongchai, a former manager of the hospital, was indicted for falsifying documents to legalise the use of such organs. The patients' families were later compensated financially to keep quiet and not report the matter. They were formally charged on March 18, 2002. In typical Thai style, the indictment of the case was delayed for months as prosecutors and police investigators had failed to agree on how many people should be formally charged for their involvement in the kidney-trading scam at the hospital and while attempts were made at back-room deals on the amounts of assets to be transferred from the cotors in order to better obfuscate the cases. However, the crimes were so enormous that none of this worked and police investigators recommended that Dr Siroj, Dr Weeradet and Dr Nanthawit be charged with pre-meditated collaboration to commit murder for the purpose of selling the deceased patients' organs to members of the political and economic elite or very wealthy foreigners who needed these organs. They also urged that Dr Nanthawit be charged with falsifying documents. The investigators wanted all charges against Dr Vivat dropped since he was just an assistant. No-show from one suspect forces postponement of case The hearing of criminal charges in the case of illegal organs trading was postponed until April, after one of the four suspects failed to turn up on March 18. Wachiraprakan hospital in Samut Prakan stood accused of stealing kidneys from terminally-ill patients. Earlier, Attorney-General Wichian Wiriyaprasit had decided to sue former Wachiraprakan hospital director Dr Siroj Kanchanapanjapol, surgeons Dr Veeradej Lertdamronglak and Dr Wiwat Thirapanich on murder charges, and to sue former hospital manager Nanthawat Thongchai on charges of forging and using documents. Charat Pattanapanich of Criminal Litigation Division 8 ordered the hearing of charges against the four suspects delayed until April 25, after being informed that an urgent operation prevented Dr Wiwat from showing up to acknowledge the charge. Mr Charat, who handles the case, said the prosecution would file the lawsuit immediately after the four suspects had heard the charges.