L’National Institute of Toxicology has not found evidence that the former player of the Barça and former sports director of the club Eric Abidal and the alleged cousin who gave him part of his liver in 2012, Gerard Armandbe really family, as the digital newspaper advances this Monday ‘The confidential‘. According to this source, the body concludes in a report sent to the court of Barcelonawho is investigating for organ trafficking Abidal, the former president of the club Sandro Rossell and the former director Juanjo Castillo, as there is no evidence that donor and recipient have blood ties. The penal code punishes between five and eight years in prison, trafficking in human beings with the aim of “extracting their bodily organs.”
In the summary, the digital newspaper adds, there are four telephone conversations between Rosell and Castillo in which they both admit, without knowing that they were being recorded by the Civil Guard i la National Police, who “bought an illegal liver” for Abidal and invented that the donor was his “cousin.” After the wiretaps were spread, the investigators already admitted that, in reality, Abidal and the donor were not cousins, but only had a grandmother in common. At best, theADN of both it would only prove the existence of an equally distant family connection.
Rogatory Commission in France
The relationship, it is added in the information, is key to authorizing an ‘inter vivos’ transplant, because it presupposes that there is an affective motivation to altruistically cede a part of an organ to another person. Liver transplants are also especially risky for the donor. Likewise, the Court number 28 of Barcelona has sent a rogatory commission to France to obtain information on Armand’s bank accounts and assets in order to find out if he could receive any kind of financial consideration in exchange for the body, as stated by Rosell and Castillo in the recorded telephone conversations.
More questions
The doubts are caused by the fact that the arrangements for making the donation were processed by the football agency Score Agenciesbased in Lyon, who at that time represented the Barça player. Investigators from the Civil Guard and the National Police have always suspected that Barça made the alleged payment of the liver through the Abidal agency, simulating the introduction of a bonus or supplement to the salary he paid periodically to the footballer. and that, later, once in French territory, the company was in charge of sending the money to the presumed cousin.
The same information adds that charging for an organ is not a crime in France, so Armand has the status of a witness in this procedure. The judge took her statement in November 2019. Her financial situation was precarious and she could not afford a flight, so she had to travel from Lyon to Barcelona by bus. However, although it was not necessary not to be charged, Abidal’s alleged family member was assisted by a lawyer. rafael palopwith office on the street Serrano from Madrid.
The aggression on Hamraoui
Apparently, Armand and Abidal met as children and after the transplant he went through the former French barbecue player with his teammates and was honored at the Camp Nou. Abidal and his wife also invited Armand and his wife on a trip to the United States and als United Arab Emirates in gratitude for the organ donation. Precisely a few months ago, Hayet Abidalwife of Eric, was involved in the investigation into the assault received in November last year by the footballer of the PSG Kheira Hamraouiwho apparently had a relationship with her husband when she was a Barça player and he, a club executive.
