An investigative report on tonight's edition of ABC's "20/20" will contradict some key claims made by the company behind the human cadaver exhibit currently showing at the Carnegie Science Center.

The 10 p.m. report by correspondent Brian Ross will present evidence that executed Chinese prisoners are, in fact, used in shows mounted by Premier Exhibitions, organizer of "Bodies ... The Exhibition," which opened at the science center in October.

Premier's president, Arnie Geller, has denied that any prisoners are used in the firm's shows.

The broadcast will dispute Premier's claim of a partnership with Dalian Medical University. The partnership was one of the key reasons cited by the Carnegie's ethics committee for its approval of the show.

Mr. Ross said he interviewed a former employee of the Chinese company that retrieves and prepares the bodies for Premier.

"He says a third of the bodies are those of executed prisoners, and he provided documentation and photographic evidence of his trips around the country to pick up bodies that back up what he says," Mr. Ross said yesterday in a phone interview.

He spent three months on the report, which traces the Premier bodies to their source. Some of the company's claims do not hold up under scrutiny, he said.

"They have no relationship whatsoever with Dalian Medical University," Mr. Ross aid. "The university is a big modern campus with gleaming buildings. They lease the bodies from a private company 30 miles away. It's a series of run-down shacks with no heat, no real light, down a road littered with garbage.

"According to the university president, a professor runs the company, but it has no connection with Dalian Medical University.

In addition, the reporter said, he talked to customs officials about Premier's labeling of the bodies as "plastic models for medical education."

"U.S. customs has told us that is not correct," he said. "They should be declared as cadavers."

The evidence described by Mr. Ross goes directly to the claims by critics that the proliferation of highly popular, profitable human cadaver shows are predicated on the abuse of human rights. Critics include Elaine Catz, a Squirrel Hill woman who resigned her part-time job at the science center in protest over the show.