Illegal kidney trade trial concludes in C China

CHANGSHA - A court in Central China's Hunan province on Friday concluded the trial of nine people involved in the case of a teenager who sold one of his kidneys to buy an iPhone and an iPad.

The court will later pronounce its verdicts on the nine defendants who should be held criminally liable for intentional injury, said the People's Procuratorate of Beihu District of Chenzhou.

The hearing was held from Thursday to Friday.

The People's Procuratorate of Beihu District accused defendant He Wei, who had been penniless and frustrated over gambling debts, of seeking financial gain via the illegal kidney trade.

In 2011, He asked Yin Shen to look for kidney donors in online chat rooms. He also asked Tang Shimin to lease an operating room from Su Kaizong, the contractor of the urology department of a local hospital.

Song Zhongyu, a surgeon from a provincial hospital in Yunnan Province, removed a kidney from a 17-year-old high school student from Anhui province, surnamed Wang, and transplanted it in a recipient in April 2012.

He earned 56,360 yuan ($,861.25) in the deal, and Su was given 60,000 yuan, Song 52,000 yuan, Tang 10,000 yuan and Yin 3,000 yuan. Wang was given 22,000 yuan after leaving the hospital.

After returning home and being questioned about where he got the money for an iPhone and an iPad, Wang confessed to his mother that he sold one of his kidneys. Wang suffered from renal failure after the surgery.

He, Yin, Tang, Song and Su were prosecuted as the main culprits, and four other defendants, including two nurses, a surgical assistant and an anesthesiologist who assisted in the transplant procedures, were tried as accessories to the crime.

During the hearing, Wang also requested supplementary civil action for compensation from the nine defendants and the hospital.