An asylum seeker on Cyprus yesterday admitted to agreeing to sell his kidney for 40,000 euros to another man who needed an urgent transplant, prompting an investigation on the island.

Following a report in the Politis newspaper, the Syrian man told journalists that he had accepted 8,000 euros for his kidney before the operation and then another 1,000 euros after the transplant.

It is illegal under Cypriot law for people to sell their organs but the director of the hospital in Nicosia where the operation took place said the two men claimed they were good friends and that the Syrian wanted to donate his kidney because he could not see his friend suffer any longer.

Cyprus’s Health Minister Christos Patsalidis said he was “very concerned” about the incident and that his department was looking into it.