Colombia Closes Dissecting Unit After Slaying Reports

BOGOTA, Colombia — This country’s health minister Wednesday ordered the indefinite closure of the dissecting room at a medical school where police believe security guards lured more than 30 people and killed them.

Police found the bodies of 11 people, who had been shot or clubbed to death, and remains of 20 others at the medical school of the Free University in the Caribbean port of Barranquilla this week after being alerted by a homeless man who said university security guards tried to kill him.

Colombian police suspect that a gang of university employees killed the people and sold the bodies to the medical school for $200 each for student research.

Local radio reported that police were digging in the grounds of the university Wednesday, suspecting that bodies may be buried there.

Health Minister Camilo Gonzalez said he had ordered the indefinite closure of the dissecting room at the medical school where most of the bodies were found.

The ministry suspended all teaching activities in the morgue and indefinitely barred it from acquiring bodies for research because of possible violations of the sanitary code, Gonzalez said.

The university, which has denied any wrongdoing, suspended classes at the medical school until next week and announced it would carry out an internal investigation.

Revelations from the university deeply shocked Colombians, drew protests from homeless people and cast a pall over annual Carnival celebrations in Barranquilla, Colombia’s fourth-largest city, 350 miles north of Bogota.