Dr. Chaim and Dina Buzaglo filed a petition in Israel\'s High Court of Justice yesterday, demanding that Abu Kabir Forensic Institute Director Dr. Yehuda Hiss be indicted and suspended for having defiled their son\'s corpse. Their son Ze\'ev was killed in a training accident in a Golan Heights IDF base in April 1997. The petitioners allege that Hiss permitted doctors at Abu Kabir to carry out unauthorized medical procedures and experiments on their son\'s body, and accuse him of unlawfully removing parts of his body.
The petition comes on the heels of an announcement by Atty.-Gen. Rubenstein that he had ordered a police investigation into Hiss\' activities involving body parts that he may have stolen and sold. A Health Ministry investigation of Hiss was concluded seven months ago, leading to the appointment of a senior director for the Institute to oversee Hiss\' activities. Dr. Hiss is also suspected of committing perjury and submitting false documentation to bolster the government\'s evidence in criminal cases.
After Ze\'ev Buzaglo\'s death, his body was brought to Abu Kabir for pathological examination. The family, which had declined to donate their son\'s organs or eyes for medical research, was later horrified to see that that unnecessary operations had been performed on his son\'s body and skin and parts of the eyes had been removed. The subsequent police investigation recommended that Dr. Hiss and other doctors be indicted for their treatment of the young soldier\'s remains. Yet, 2-1/2 years later, no indictment has yet been filed. Atty. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, representing the Buzaglos, said that they \"reasonably fear that the government will stretch the investigation out endlessly and continue to cover-up for the criminals at the Abu Kabir Institute.\"
The petition comes on the heels of an announcement by Atty.-Gen. Rubenstein that he had ordered a police investigation into Hiss\' activities involving body parts that he may have stolen and sold. A Health Ministry investigation of Hiss was concluded seven months ago, leading to the appointment of a senior director for the Institute to oversee Hiss\' activities. Dr. Hiss is also suspected of committing perjury and submitting false documentation to bolster the government\'s evidence in criminal cases.
After Ze\'ev Buzaglo\'s death, his body was brought to Abu Kabir for pathological examination. The family, which had declined to donate their son\'s organs or eyes for medical research, was later horrified to see that that unnecessary operations had been performed on his son\'s body and skin and parts of the eyes had been removed. The subsequent police investigation recommended that Dr. Hiss and other doctors be indicted for their treatment of the young soldier\'s remains. Yet, 2-1/2 years later, no indictment has yet been filed. Atty. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, representing the Buzaglos, said that they \"reasonably fear that the government will stretch the investigation out endlessly and continue to cover-up for the criminals at the Abu Kabir Institute.\"