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| Inmate selling his organs to raise cash |
| By The Edmonton Sun |
| Published: 12/22/2003 |
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Michael Kapoustin is tired of screaming to himself. He's tired of waiting impatiently, almost eight years inside Sofia Central Penitentiary in Bulgaria. So the Canadian - a businessman sentenced to 17 years for an investment scandal in that country - is organizing with other foreign prisoners within the prison. Theirs is an unorthodox and horrifying escape plan. Not over a wall. Or under a fence. But, really, one piece of flesh at a time. Exhausted of legal avenues and, more importantly, money, Kapoustin is now proposing he and several other inmates - from Poland, Romania, Nigeria and America - put their organs up for auction. Offered to the wealthy and the sick, Kapoustin - raised in Toronto - says the money would help speed up the process for him and the other foreigners. He hopes even the lunacy of the suggestion will make someone listen. "It is impossible for you to understand how desperate I must feel," the father of a young boy says. "It appears by selling organs (or) donating in exchange for assistance - in my case, for a Canadian who might need such an organ - that there might be a possibility of getting home." Kapoustin was arrested in 1996 by German cops. He was extradited to Bulgaria, and, amid allegations he ran a pyramid scheme, was found guilty of embezzlement from his Bulgarian company. When he reached Bulgaria, he spent more than two years in solitary confinement. Bulgarian prisons have long been criticized for overcrowding and lack of food. Even toilet paper has been considered a luxury. The human rights Bulgarian Helsinki Committee found a disturbing number of allegations of police beatings. Kapoustin began his attempts to be transferred back to a jail in Canada in 1999. Since then, he has grown more frustrated. He has also used the time to launch lawsuits against the Bulgarians in Canada and the U.S. He says by refusing to drop those suits, he's being held back from a cell closer to his family. Kapoustin - who says he was cleared of the pyramid allegations, while being wrongly convicted of embezzlement - says he is now at a breaking point. "In ... eight years, I have never once seen or held my 10-year-old son and my wife of more than 15 years," he says. "This week I turn 51. My father is 80 and my mother 72. I fear that I may never see them. In those eight years, my son was diagnosed diabetic and nearly died, my mother suffered multiple strokes and (has) Alzheimer's. From inside his cell, Kapoustin bides his time by writing and planning and drawing. |
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