Last update - 00:00 16/12/2007
Court sentences Haifa man to four years in jail for organ trafficking
By Fadi Eyadat, Haaretz Correspondent
Haifa District Court on Sunday sentenced John Allen (formerly Mohammed Ayat) to four years in jail and a further three years' suspended sentence for trafficking in people in order to sell their organs.
Allen, 59, confessed to the crime within the framework of a plea bargain he made with the court.
The judges also ordered Allen, a resident of Haifa, to pay compensation to his six victims.
Another Haifa resident, Hassan Zakhalkah, was convicted in the same affair of aiding trafficking in people in order to sell their organs.
The court sentenced Zakhlakah, 32, to 20 months jail time and a further suspended sentence of a year.
The pair confessed to exploiting Israeli Arabs with low socio-academic backgrounds and mental handicaps or psychological problems during 2006, by convincing them to agree to the harvesting of their kidneys in return for money.
The victims were all residents of the Galilee and the Arab "Triangle" region near Afula.
According to the indictment, on which the convictions were based, the men used fraud and deception on their victims, as well as psychological pressure and threats, to make them agree to giving up their organs.
After the victims had undergone the operations, Allen and Zakhalkah then reneged on their promise to pay them.
The pair were part of a gang which also included a doctor, Dr. Michael Ziss, who performed the operations in the Ukraine. The indictments states that Ziss sold the kidneys for a sum somewhere between $125,000 and $135,000. Allen received tens of thousands of dollars for each kidney.
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