Charges against an Israeli couple caught in an illegal attempt to smuggle a baby out of Brazil have escalated into what might be termed a high-tech blood libel.
An Israeli woman, Sipirit Friedman, and an Israeli man, Alon Benjamin, said to be her friend, were arrested last week along with six Brazilians on baby-smuggling charges.
The woman had been stopped at the Rio International Airport, where she was attempting to board a plane for Europe; in her arms was a 15-day-old baby who had false registration papers.
Local media soon pounced on the story, announcing that agents of the Division for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, with the assistance of Interpol, had been tracking a gang specializing in illegally shipping babies to Europe and Israel.
Once in Israel, these reports accused that the babies were having their organs removed and sold for transplants.
The arrests of Friedman, Benjamin and the six Brazilians were linked to the police’s ongoing attempts to arrest the gang of organ sellers.
According to the Israeli Consulate in Rio and the newspaper Jornal do Brasil, the source of the accusation linking the Israeli couple with the ring selling babies’ organs was Walter Alves de Oliveira, the director of the Division for the Protection of Children and Adolescents.
But de Oliveira told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that neither he nor the Division for the Protection of Children and Adolescents had made the accusation regarding selling babies’ organs in Israel.
“We have no proof of selling organs in this case,” he said. “But we do have proof of an attempt to illegally remove a baby from Brazil to a foreign country.”
‘NO PROOF OF SELLING ORGANS’
Friedman, who is being held in a prison for women in Rio, claimed she came to Brazil to adopt a baby with documentation legalized in Israel.
She denied participation in any organ-selling plot, adding that she already has one adopted Brazilian child.
She said she is awaiting documents from her husband in Israel, David Friedman, that will attest to her innocence.
The other Israeli, Alon, refused to discuss the case.
The penalty for removing children from the country for financial gain is four to six years in prison.
In wake of charges that Israel is a center for the sale of babies’ organs, the Israeli consul general in Rio, Azriel Gal-On, gave a statement to the media saying the accusations are “absolutely false, mendacious and abominable.”
“Jewish law, as well as the law of the State of Israel, completely prohibits the use of organs of any human being after his or her death, without the approval of the family.
“Even when the hospital has the approval of the family of the deceased, the religious sector of Israel fights against this possibility.
“Moreover, before performing each transplant, the approval of a tribunal composed of three doctors is necessary. We must emphasize that this law is extremely rigid and strictly controlled by the minister of health of Israel.”
A similar story arose in Guatemala five years ago when a Guatemalan paper charged Israelis were stealing babies to use for organ transplants. There, too, the Israeli Embassy denounced the charge as untrue and defamatory.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
