TAIPEI Taiwan is mulling tightening the procedures for harvesting organs from executed prisoners in reaction to allegations of human rights abuses, a health official said.

Discussions have been held about tightening the controversial procedure, Chen i-An, an official with the Bureau of Medical Affairs under the Department of Health, told AFP.

The united evening news reported Thursday that the Justice Ministry had ordered that taking organs from executed prisoners should be handled strictly in accordance with existing regulations.

The report has yet to be confirmed by the ministry.

Chen said some changes had been made to the procedure to facilitate the taking of organs from the bodies of prisoners.

"According to the stipulations, it should take at least 12 hours for doctors to determine if executed prisoners really die after they were shot," he said, referring to "brainstem death".

However, the required procedure had been controversially shortened to make sure organs stripped from the executed prisoners remained "fresh" following an official decision 10 years ago.

The authorities had also made some changes to the execution of prisoners, shooting them in the head rather than in the chest.

Human rights groups have slammed the shortened procedure, which has been criticized for, in some rare cases, being tantamount to stripping organs from executed prisoners who may be still alive.

But Chen was swift to contrast the taking of organs from executed prisoners here with alleged cases in China, saying that Taiwanese prisoners signed consent forms for the procedure.

"Here executed prisoners must sign off on documents showing their moves (donating organs) are voluntary and have nothing to do with profits," Chen said.

"And any of their such papers must be certified by social workers and doctors suggesting that their donation of organs were not made under any pressure," he said.

Last year 11 of 17 criminals who were executed in Taiwan had organs taken from their bodies, according to Department of Health Tallies.

Eight out of the 26 criminals executed in 1999 had had their organs transplanted.

"In the first half of this year, only one executed prisoner donated organs for transplant," Chen said.

A doctor exiled from China told a U.S. Congressional Committee last month how he was forced to strip the skin from executed death row prisoners, saying he was breaking his silence to expose an evil trade in human organs.

Wang Guoqi, a 38-year-old physician, said he had skinned corpses and removed corneas of over 100 executed prisoners, in his grisly testimony at a high-profile hearing.

China denied the allegations.

To comply with the human rights drive of the government of the Democratic progressive Party, Justice Minister Chen Ting-Nan said for the first time in may that he hoped to abolish the death penalty within three years, prompting a mixed reaction.

While human rights groups hailed chen, opposition parties poured cold water on the idea.

Local media said past surveys suggested about 80 percent of people in Taiwan opposed the abolition of death penalty.