At the time she was the oldest woman to have given birth. “The arrest of Severino Antinori is extremely serious because it indicates the existence of a market in eggs that will not stop at anything,” said Donata Lenzi, an Italian lawmaker from Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party.Prosecutors alleged that Mr Antinori, who had met the woman by chance, set up the job interview and subsequently diagnosed the ovarian cyst with the sole intention of harvesting her eggs without her knowledge.

The gynaecologist was also involved in the treatment of Patricia Rashbrook, who became Britain’s oldest mother when she had a boy in 2006.Antinori became famous world-wide in 1994 when his fertility treatment led to Italian Rossana Della Corte giving birth to a son at the age of 63.. It is unclear whether he has ever overseen the creation of a cloned child.Mr Antinori’s license to practice gynaecology was provisionally suspended for an year and he has been placed under house arrest in Rome under the charges of aggravated robbery and causing personal injury.

A pioneering Italian gynaecologist best known for helping women in their 60s to have babies has been arrested on suspicion of removing eggs from a patient without her consent.Severino Antinori, 70, was arrested at Rome’s Fiumicino airport on Friday following a complaint filed by a 24-year-old Spanish woman who was being treated for two color injection molding machine Manufacturers an ovarian cyst at Milan clinic run by the specialist.The woman said that she had her mobile phone taken from her before being forcibly immobilised, placed under anaesthesia and operated on without her consent.

The alleged victim was a Spanish national with a nursing qualification who had recently begun working at the clinic. The investigation was triggered by the woman calling emergency services from a pay phone in the clinic after she came round from the surgery. She believed she was only going to be treated by injection for the cyst, her lawyer said. Mr Antinori’s lawyers described the charges against their client as “absurd”.Prosecutors are also working on the hypothesis that this may not be an isolated case. Mr Antinori has also attracted controversy with his advocacy of the use of cloning technology to enable infertile couples to have children by injecting genetic material from a father into donated eggs