Fertility doc Antinori indicted

(ANSA) - Milan, July 20 - Controversial fertility doctor Severino Antinori was indicted Wednesday for forcibly removing eight eggs from a Spanish patient at his Milan clinic. Antinori, 70, was arrested May 13 at Rome's Fiumicino Airport following a complaint by the 24-year-old nurse, who was being treated for an ovarian cyst. The woman told police she was bound, sedated, forced to undergo removal of her eggs and deprived of her cell phone throughout the procedure.
    Antinori has accused the nurse of being a member of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group.
    "She was in ISIS. She alleged that (crime) because I discovered her," Antinori told Italian TV.
    Asked about the signs of violence the nurse showed, the gynaecologist said she did it to herself.
    The judge who wrote his arrest warrant said Antinori displayed "indifference" to the victim's dignity, that he was "clouded by the goal of making money" and that he was a danger to society because he might commit similar crimes.
    Antinori's two secretaries who were placed under house arrest were described as "willing to do anything to satisfy their employer's wishes".
    "The urgent need to obtain suitable eggs that could be immediately implanted in clients' uteruses for the exclusive purpose of maximising profit" is the "motive" that allegedly drove Antinori and his two secretaries to "unscrupulous behaviors" including "violent deprivation of personal freedom", the judge wrote.
    Antinori shot to worldwide fame in 1994 when his pioneering techniques made a 63-year-old woman become the oldest ever to have given birth. He called the indictment "a persecution".
    Trial begins November 17.