Thursday, July 23, 2009

30 Israelis arrested in Romanian clinic

Thirty Israelis suspected of human-egg trafficking were detained Sunday in a fertility clinic in Bucharest.

ollowing an interrogation by Romanian police, 28 of the detainees were released after bail was posted.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levi confirmed the details of the report to Israel Radio on Monday, and said the Israeli Embassy in the Romanian capital was cooperating with local authorities.

"We have full trust in the Romanians," Levi said, adding that he was confident the affair would reach a swift conclusion.

According to local media reports, a special police unit raided the clinic and arrested dozens of people, including members of the institution's management.

Police suspect the clinic was illegally dealing in human eggs and stem cells. Some of the Israeli women detained are thought to have sold their eggs there.

Meanwhile, Deputy Health Minister Ya'acov Litzman has temporarily put on hold a government bill that would expand the harvesting and donation of human ova in Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The bill, which the ministry's legal adviser has been preparing for years, would change the current situation, in which only women undergoing fertility treatment themselves are allowed to donate the ova they don't need. It is otherwise illegal to harvest ova, even for altruistic purposes, due to concerns that people may try to take advantage of the procedure and sell them.

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