An agreement on Cooperation between the Kyrgyz State Medical Academy (KSMA) and the clinic of Gunter von Haggens was signed in 1996. According to the agreement, a specially created institute of plastification (“Plastinatsiya institute”) under KSMA had started to supply human corpses, and getting training aids in turn. Until the year 2000, von Haggens properly sent back corpses received from Kyrgyzstan and processed in his clinic, which had taken their place in the museum of the institute of plastification. However, as the former Director of the Institute Valeriy Gabitov claims, the Germans did not return several lots of corpses, sending instead nearly 14 tons of biodegradable waste for burial. Mr. Gabitov, who currently is hiding from the investigation and who had provided a testimony for the investigation by means of a videotape, says that “until the present, at least 30% of the displays of the German clinic- museum were done from Kyrgyz corpses. In a personal interview, Tashtanbekov stated that “the turnover of this shadowy business is in the tens of millions of U.S. dollars”. He also repeatedly claimed to possess authentic documents about all facts of the illegal export of corpses. According to the deputy, the Institute of Plastification had taken away unclaimed corpses of prisoners from Kyrgyz prisons to the Forensic Medical Examination Bureau and had sent them to Germany. Employees of the administration, as it asserted, received $10 per corpse. The sum to which von Haggens purchased the corpses is unknown, but there is information that he had insured each corpse for DM100,000. Bank remittances from Germany to Kyrgyzstan were received constantly. Moreover, the clinic museum sent humanitarian aid to Kyrgyzstan in the form of refrigerators, video appliances and other equipment. The Plastification Institute’s Director Valeriy Gabitov, by his own admission, had received for the nearly 300 000 DM “in different forms” during the period. Former employees of the Institute of Plastification say that the partners in the transportation of Kyrgyz corpses to Germany began to cover their tracks from February of this year. All people related to the process were dismissed. Dozens of corpses remained in cold stores at the Institute and when the investigation began, it turned out that several corpses received from places of detention had obvious traces of violent death. Members of the investigation attest that militiamen attempted to hide the facts of violent deaths of prisoners. Moreover, according to some information, the corpse of the relative of a Kyrgyz official, who disappeared several months ago, had been found among the remaining corpses. The Economic Policy and Business Committee of the Jogorku Kenesh of Kyrgyzstan recommended to the government of the country to consider the dismissal of one of the Deputy Ministers of Healthcare, of the president of the Kyrgyz State Medical Academy and the chief of the GDPI. In spite of Kyrgyz deputies’ loud accusations, there is an opinion that this scandal is no more than an attempt by several deputies to raise their rating among the electorate. There are rumors in Bishkek that a personal conflict between the initiator of the investigation and Healthcare officials caused this scandal. Mr. Tashtanbekov has not yet shown promised documents. Thus, the cause of accusation is only the videotape recording with confession of Valeriy Gabitov. However, the deputies had no chance to talk to him directly. The position of von Haggens on this issue is also unknown. Earlier, he has repeatedly claimed only to work with Kyrgyz colleagues on a legal basis.