Yehuda Hiss is the chief pathologist at the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine and has held this position since 1988.[1][2][3] The Abu Kabir institute, also known as the L Greenberg Institute of Forensic Medicine, is the only place in Israel and the occupied territories authorized to conduct autopsies in cases of unnatural death.[4]
Hiss conducted the autopsies of and authored the pathology reports for notable figures, including Yitzhak Rabin and Rachel Corrie, among others.
In 2001, an investigation conducted by Israel's Ministry of Health found that Hiss had been involved in the sale of body parts to medical schools, which were extracted without permission from the families of those concerned, for years. Forward writes that Hiss was never charged with any crime, but was forced to step down from running the state morgue in 2004, following years of complaints. According to Forward, "the final straw, apparently, was when the body of a youth killed in a road accident was gnawed upon by a rat in Hiss's lab." Every body that ended up in Hiss' morgue, whether Israeli or Palestinian, was fair game for organ harvesting. It was families of dead Israeli soldiers that were among those who complained about Hiss's conduct.[5]
According to Jonathan Cook, Hiss was allowed to continue as director of Abu Kabir until 2005, when allegations of a trade in organs surfaced again. Hiss admitted to having removed parts from 125 bodies without authorisation, and following a plea bargain with the state of Israel, the attorney-general decided not to press criminal charges. Hiss was given only a reprimand and has continued in his position as chief pathologist at Abu Kabir.[6]