Istanbul (CNN) -- A Turkish doctor arrested in an investigation into an alleged human organ smuggling ring protested his innocence Wednesday.
"There is no such crime. There is no organ trade," Yusuf Ercin Sonmez told reporters outside a courthouse, according to Turkey's semiofficial Anatolian news agency. "There can't be evidence for something that doesn't exist," he added.
He was arrested Tuesday in Istanbul's Kartal district, an officer with the financial crimes department of Istanbul Police told CNN.
Sonmez, 53, was the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant issued by the District Court of Pristina in Kosovo. The offenses listed by Interpol: crimes against life and health, people smuggling, trafficking and illegal immigration.
Sonmez was questioned by a prosecutor for about two hours Wednesday, then sent to a criminal court "with the prosecutor's demand for his arrest for 'organized organ trading,' " the Anatolian news agency said. Sonmez was then released by the court pending trial.
Last month, European authorities charged in a report that executives who control Kosovo may have stolen organs when the Kosovo Liberation Army was fighting Serbian forces in the late 1990s. CNN
