Guilty decision upheld for doctor who received kidney illegally

Mainichi Shinbun

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The Tokyo High Court on Thursday upheld a lower court decision that sentenced a doctor to three years in prison for paying millions of yen to illegally receive a kidney in a transplant operation.

The three-judge high court panel turned down an appeal from the doctor, Toshinobu Horiuchi, 56, and from his former wife Noriko Usui, 49, who was sentenced to two and half years for conspiring with the doctor.

Presiding Judge Shoji Ogawa said the two defendants' acts damaged public trust in the fairness of organ transplant, noting that Horiuchi spent a huge amount of money to receive a kidney and Usui played a key role in mediating the transplant through underworld contacts.

In conspiracy with Usui, Horiuchi, who had suffered kidney failure, paid a total of 10 million yen between 2009 and 2010 to mediators who introduced a kidney donor to him, court findings show.

But after the plan hit a snag, with the mediators seeking further payment, the defendants sought a separate kidney donor and paid 8 million yen to a female intermediary in exchange for receiving the organ from an unemployed man, the ruling showed.

The 1997 organ transplantation law bans trade in organs, and the ethical guidelines of the Japan Society for Transplantation only permit live organ donation between family members to prevent trade in organs.

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