“It was a lot of money, my children and I did it to save a life”

“It was a lot of money, I was doing it for my children and to save a life,” the woman from the Prensa Ibérica group told Levante-EMV after testifying as a witness at the trial against the five defendants. The millionaire residing in Beirut, who was to receive the healthy organ, went “informed about” his son, who finally donated to him after failing all his attempts at a hospital in Pamplona and another in Barcelona to complete the said transplant. most Prestige of this type of surgery in our country“According to the statement made by the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor.

In court, the witness tried to underestimate that they had offered him money for a piece of his liver and stated that he did not even remember whether the amount they had talked about was 30,000 or 40,000 euros. And although he admits that economic situation was very badHe claimed If money wasn’t involved, I would too.. Following the main court statement “If you can save someone’s life by donating, they test you before you donate and it won’t do you any harm, why don’t you do it?” argued Ana. “I’d do the same if it was free,” she insisted.

associated with it the so-called self-sacrifice exerciseThe woman attributes her mother to suffering from a genetic degenerative disease of the blood vessels that requires regular blood transfusions. Therefore, he became an organ donor. Now if they call me for a kidney donation, I donate a kidney without knowing the person and without paying a penny,” she says.

Yes, the witness affirmed some of the key aspects – the defendant is facing – in the case of a parent body and the offense of promoting, favoring or facilitating the illegal transplant of foreign human organs with knowledge of illegal origin. imprisonment from seven to three years-.

On the one hand, in a cafeteria on Avenida Francia in Valencia, he interviewed some of the people he could not identify and some of the people who made the aforementioned transplant offer. substantial monetary compensation. They said the piece of liver belonged to a senior Lebanese president – whom he had never met – and that they were conducting tests at a private clinic in Valencia.

“At first I didn’t even know if the liver could be donated, I researched and found that it’s not possible to have a whole liver as a person cannot live without a liver, but a piece can be and then the organ is regenerated,” he explains. . It also gave him confidence that the surgery would be performed in a hospital. all health guarantees and pre-checks.

“I’m not stupid, I knew it wasn’t legal if money was involved,” he admitted in court. Yes definitely, The millionaire, who will receive the organ in a good place, always tried to leavedescribing her as a “good person” and wanted to explain that they refused her, not because she was a woman, but because she “learned that I had two children under my care and it didn’t seem right to put me through all this, because the operation was delicate and would have to spend recovery time afterwards.” If I had money and I was dying or had a son, I would also look for the formula to fix it quickly,” he justified.

After rejecting him as a donor, they offered another illegal job, paying 10,000 euros for a comfortable marriage with a “pasta Arab”. Ana admits that she met him a few times to meet him, invited him for seafood, and that he was very well dressed, but was starting to overwhelm him. I wanted the marriage to be real -living together as a couple- and that threw him back.

Another witness, who was also assigned to the transport, admitted that when they were offered a job in Lebanon and a job as a member of the family, they took him by car to Pamplona and then to Barcelona for surgery. . In both one hospital and another, previous checks—any altruistic donation in Spain had to be overseen by a court—crippled the transplant’s realization. It was then that new tests were performed on one of the donor’s sons, and after considering the possibilities, he donated a piece of his liver to his father in August 2013.

The National Police instructor, who testified as a witness yesterday and handled the case, detailed the operation that led to the arrest of the five defendants, confirming that eight potential donors were tested to determine their compatibility, and clarified that they all paid through a Novelda marble company owned by relatives of the Lebanese politician: “What? He did not want his son to have these traits exposed to an intervention, and at the risk that would entail. and possible sequels.” The lives of poor people were less important to him.