Thailand's Landmark Human Organ Transplant Sales Scam Trial Opens by Phairath Khampha 27 April 2002 A Thai criminal court started hearing the cases of three doctors and a hospital manager accused of conspiring to murder patients for their kidneys. Three surgeons and the hospital administrator on April 25, 2002 entered a joint plea of not guilty to charges of a conspiracy to murder patients in an organ transplant scam, in the opening of Thailand's first trial to centre on the legal definition of death. The doctors from Samut Prakan's Vachiraprakan Hospital - Siroj Kanjanapanjapol, 49, Viradej Lertdamronglak, 34, and Vivat Thirapanit, 42 - and manager Nathawit Thongchai, 52, were accused of conspiring to kill two patients with the aim of obtaining kidneys for organ transplant operations. The four defendants are also charged with falsifying documents to cover up their scam to boost the number of kidney donors. A Bangkok criminal court on the same day granted a request for temporary release of the four on bail of 500,000 baht each. In the writ submitted to the Criminal Court, the prosecutors said that the defendants had lured the victims and their relatives into endorsing the organ donations under the pretext of completing hospital formalities. Following a lengthy investigation dating back to 1997, it was discovered that the defendants ran a scam to trick others into believing that they had the victims' consent before removing their kidneys, effectively murdering the "donors". The prosecutors argued that the defendants had committed first-degree murder because the victims were still alive during the unauthorised removal of the kidneys. The court heard that the victims had heartbeats although they might have been brain-dead at the time of the organ transplant operations. Under Thailand's penal code, a heartbeat is the only vital sign used in the definition of death.