CLAIMS OF TRADE IN CORPSES ROCK KYRGYZSTAN

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Claims of Trade in Corpses Rock Kyrgyzstan

BISHKEK (Reuters) - A member of parliament in Kyrgyzstan has sparked outrage by alleging that the country's prisons and hospitals illegally sold off tons of corpses and body parts which ended up as museum exhibits in Europe.

The corpses were sold without the consent of relatives to Kyrgyzstan's Medical Academy which passed them on to German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, parliamentarian Akbokon Tashtanbekov said.

Professor Von Hagens, whose Body Worlds exhibition of flayed human bodies has had long runs in London and Germany, appeared before parliament in the Central Asian state last month to deny breaking any laws or using Kyrgyz bodies in his exhibitions.

The allegations have prompted a police investigation into the Medical Academy and stirred passions in the impoverished, largely Muslim ex-Soviet state of five million.

"He (Tashtanbekov) is a professional liar," Von Hagens told the parliamentary hearing.

Von Hagens, dressed in trademark jeans, jacket and black hat, said he had worked on corpses and body parts from Kyrgyzstan but had returned them to the country for use by medical students. He said he had plenty of voluntary donors from around the world to supply his exhibitions.

But Tashtanbekov, who spearheaded the hearing, said on Wednesday that he intended to keep up his campaign to uncover what he claims is a "mafia operation" that he says has exported 35 tons of bodies and body parts in the last six years.

He has not accused Von Hagens of involvement in the illegal sale of the corpses but said he intended to travel to Germany to establish that Kyrgyz bodies had ended up in Von Hagens' exhibition.

A scientist at the Medical Academy, Valery Gabitov, told parliament in video testimony that he believed a third of the bodies in the Body Worlds exhibition were Kyrgyz -- a statement described as a lie by Von Hagens.

"There's no claim against Von Hagens himself," Tashtanbekov told Reuters. "Our investigation was not into (Von Hagens) but into those people in the Medical Academy who sold him bodies."

He said the bodies were those of deceased prisoners, hospital patients and inmates of psychiatric institutes and were sold to the Medical Academy instead of being handed to relatives.

The health ministry fired the rector of the Medical Academy, where Von Hagens runs a small anatomy center, earlier this month in the wake of the scandal.

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