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NEWS
Checking out Abu Kabir
by Yated Ne'eman Staff

Private Daniel Hiller was found dead at his Israel Defense Forces base on May 30, 2001. An autopsy performed on his body at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine (NIFM) at Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv by Dr. Bertold Levy, showed that he had committed suicide. In June of this year, his parents, Herman and Daniella Miller, who were dissatisfied with the autopsy results, exhumed their son's coffin and placed it in the living room of their home in the southern development town of Dimona until the army agreed to their demand for a second -- independent -- autopsy.

Danish pathologist Jurgen Thomsen, 59, is the chairman of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Southern Denmark. Thomsen is also the chairman of the Danish organization for forensic medicine and has worked with the United Nations and with human rights groups all over the world for the past 20 years.

Thomsen was asked to come to Israel and to perform the autopsy, at the army's expense. The autopsy was performed on July 29 at Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva. Thomsen's report confirmed the cause of death as suicide but maintained that the body had not been properly sewn up afterward and that internal organs and three ribs were missing from it.

Thomsen's report infuriated Prof. Yehuda Hiss, the long-time head of the Abu Kabir facility. On August 4, Hiss held a press conference to rebut Thomsen's findings. He also obtained the support of senior officials in the health establishment.

Hiss has been under fire after a commission headed by a retired judge, Arie Segalson, submitted a critical report about the NIFM in April 2001 -- a month before Hiller's autopsy. (The commission was established following allegations made in an investigative report that appeared in Yediot Achronot.) The commission revealed flaws in the work of the Institute, infractions of the Pathology Law and cases of disregard for the feelings of families. The institute "harvests organs for research and teaching purposes without the family's consent," the report stated. In some cases, organs were sent to research institutes or universities in return for reimbursement of the expenses involved.

At the press conference, Hiss charged that Thomsen's autopsy and report were negligent, unprofessional and not objective. The fact that organs were missing, he said, is consistent with the condition of a body after two years.

In the wake of the controversy, Health Minister Dan Naveh announced on August 6 that he had set up an external commission headed by Judge Vardi Zeiler, the outgoing president of the Jerusalem District Court, to examine the first autopsy of Daniel Hiller, at the Abu Kabir. The panel will include Prof. Avi Yisraeli, from Hadassah, and a retired major general, Shmuel Arad. Thomsen will be asked to testify before the commission, which is to begin its work on August 29.

Thomsen's Mistakes?

According to Hiss, Thomsen's first mistake in the autopsy itself was that he did not identify the body by means of a DNA examination and by examining the teeth. "How did he know it was the body of that particular deceased individual?" Hiss wonders.

Attorney Feuering, the Hiller's representative, says this is media spin with the purpose of diverting attention from the main question: whether internal organs were removed from the body. "Is it possible there was a different body in Hiller's grave? That is absurd."

A number of physicians said that Thomsen's examination was too short, lasting only three hours, and therefore could not be serious.

Attorney Feuering notes that the first autopsy didn't take two days, either, "so what are they babbling about?" An American pathologist agreed that three hours is enough time to examine the body, adding that the contention about the briefness of the autopsy is incorrect and ludicrous.

Hiss maintains that what undercut Thomsen's credibility was his finding that the body was not sewn up properly after the first autopsy. "Can you conceive of such a thing? It is something shocking. Maybe he worked in strange places where strange things were done, but to say that in Israel bodies are not sewn up is a slap in the face. It's impossible to move a body that has not been sewn up, you know. If it is not sewn, the organs will fall out. When a person says something so serious it is impossible to take him seriously afterward. The military chaplaincy would not have accepted a body that was not sewn up."

Dr. Yuri Koplovitz, chairman of the Israeli association of pathologists, admits he has not read Thomsen's report, but stands firmly behind Hiss. "I can understand the origins of Thomsen's mistake. To sew the body we use a cotton or linen, which dissolve after a short time. He apparently uses a nylon thread, which doesn't decay so quickly and whose remnants can be found easily. He didn't find traces of nylon thread and so thought the body was not sewn together. I don't even know how to go about reading what he wrote."

Prof. Derrick Pounder, a forensic pathologist from Dundee University, in Scotland, burst out laughing when he heard the contentions of the Israeli physicians. "No one in the world uses nylon thread -- the same threads are used everywhere in the world," he says. "Even if threads dissolve, you can see the signs of the sewing in the body. The threads are very thick and leave conspicuous signs in the body. It doesn't surprise me that they didn't sew the body. A few years ago I performed an autopsy on a Palestinian at Abu Kabir and they didn't sew the body then, either. Usually they don't sew the body out of sheer laziness."

Blachar, the chairman of the IMA, is especially angry at Thomsen's finding that certain internal organs and three ribs were not found in the body. "Every textbook of forensic medicine states that the body undergoes a liquefaction process such that within 10 months, there are no remains of internal organs."

In his report, Thomsen addresses the criticism. His experience with decaying bodies shows that it is still possible to identify at least some of the internal organs even after years in the grave, he wrote.

Anyone with sufficient experience can identify internal parts of the body even two years after the death, Prof. Wecht, an American pathologist, says. "There may truth in Thomsen's arguments, especially given what happened at the institute in the past."

Pounder laughs again. "To say that the body is so decayed that it is impossible to identify missing organs is childish and immature. Thomsen is used to dealing with decayed bodies. What do they think, that in Denmark bodies don't rot? If that were the situation, Denmark would have long since sunk beneath the sea. If he says organs disappeared, you can believe him 100 percent. The Israeli physicians are attacking the messenger instead of trying to deal with the problem."

Similarly, Susannah Sirkin, in Boston, the deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights (a group for which Thomses has done work in the past) in the United States, says she has no reason to doubt Thomsen's credibility. Thomsen has worked with the American organization in the past and was sent by it to supervise an autopsy in Israel.

"I would be very surprised and amazed if it turns out that Thomsen's report is inaccurate," says a senior official of the human rights organization Amnesty International in London. "And I say that on the basis of many years of acquaintance with him and after reading many of his reports. I never heard complaints about his credibility from his medical colleagues."

Prof. Derek Pounder, the forensic pathologist from Dundee University, says he has known Thomsen for 20 years. "He is considered a senior pathologist, orthodox in his autopsies, balanced in his reports. He was never accused of writing untrue reports. Even though he is large in his dimensions, he is very gentle and balanced in his soul. I would trust his findings 100 percent and cast doubt on the criticism of him."

 

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