The British government ignored continued organ harvesting in China to avoid acknowledging “an inconvenient truth”, an independent tribunal has suggested.

For more than a decade, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been accused of “acts of cruelty and wickedness” that match those of “medieval torturers and executioners”. Victims have allegedly had their bodies cut open - some while still alive - for their kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs, cornea and skin to be removed and turned into commodities for sale.

However today for the first time, an independent tribunal concluded that China is a “criminal state” which, “beyond reasonable doubt” has committed crimes against humanity, acts of torture, and that enemies of the state continue to be medically tested and killed for their organs.

The Independent Tribunal Into Forced Organ Harvesting of Prisoners of Conscience in China, known as the China Tribunal, heard evidence from medical experts, human rights investigators and alleged victims over a six-month period.

In a judgment lasting an hour-and-a-half and read out before hundreds of people including international media in London the Tribunal Chairman, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who led the prosecution of Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal, criticised the British government for failing to act.