Last update - 00:00 16/10/2006
Court hears testimony on doctor who allegedly took bribes for surgeries
By Nir Hasson and Ran Reznik, Haaretz Correspondent
Attorneys began to present evidence at the Tel Aviv Magistrate's court on Monday in the case of the former head of cardiac surgery at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer who was charged with demanding large sums of money to perform operations.
Family members testified that they paid or intended to pay Professor Aram Smolinsky so that he would operate on their loved ones himself.
The affair was revealed in a series of articles on the subject published in Haaretz in December 2000. In March 2006, prosecutors indicted Smolinsky on ten charges including bribery, with family members allegedly paying the doctor sums ranging from NIS 8,000 to NIS 24,000 to perform the surgeries. In addition, Smolinsky is charged with pocketing donations that patients and their families made to support research at the hospital.
The first witness testifying for the prosecution, Berta Armoni, said that when she asked Smolinsky to operate on her mother, he demanded 5,000 dollars to perform the surgery. "When the operation was over, I asked him when we would meet, and he said I have a week," Armoni told the court. A few days later, Armoni said she arrived at the doctor's office and "put an envelope with 5,000 dollars in it on his desk."
Following Armoni's testimony, Harmo Rubenstein regaled the story of how his wife, Dahlia, needed a heart operation and the two approached Smolinsky to ask how much money it would cost for him to perform the surgery. "He said it would take 5,000 dollars, but as a donation to the hospital. My wife told him she would not make a donation to the hospital. She said she would give him 5,000 dollars in his hand and asked that he operate, he nodded his head, that's how we knew he would be the one to perform the operation," Rubenstein said.
Rubenstein said he later found out that Smolinsky had performed only part of the surgery. He also said the doctor treated him and his wife differently after the operation, "we suddenly felt that he wasn't treating us right...we asked his secretary what happened. She asked if we had given him the money." Dahlia Rubenstein died around a month after the operation and Smolinsky never received the money.
The third witness for the prosecution was Meir Hohenstein, who said Smolinsky had saved his father's life and as a result, he felt uneasy about testifying. Nonetheless, he also testified that Smolinsky asked him to donate 5,000 dollars to the hospital's research fund, in return for a promise that he would be the doctor who performed the operation. After the operation, Hohenstien decided to donate only 3,000 dollars, which he gave to Smolinsky in cash at the doctor's office.
According to prosecutor Tony Goldenberg, the money was never transferred to the research fund, and if this is the case, Smolinsky could be convicted with stealing, in addition to the bribery charges.
Smolinsky's attorney, David Libai, claimed in court that the doctor never directly asked for money, nor did he staple the payment as a condition for his consent to operate.
Officials close to Smolinsky said in response to the charges against him that, "Prof. Smolinsky treated and continues to treat extraordinarily serious and difficult cases, such as those presented in court today. Thanks to him, the lives of thousands of people in Israel have been saved. The claim that the treatment was conditioned on payment is untrue."
On Wednesday, the trial will continue and at least seven more family members are set to be put on the stand.