Former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice, and medical doctor, Obinna Obeta, have been jailed for conspiring to traffic a market trader to the United Kingdom to harvest his kidney.
Ekweremadu, 60, his 56-year-old wife, and 25-year-old sick daughter, Sonia, stood trial accused of a conspiracy to bring the man to Britain from Lagos for his organ.
At a sentencing hearing on Friday, May 5, Ekweremadu was jailed for nine years and eight months, his wife Beatrice was sentenced to four years and six months imprisonment, while Obeta received a 10-year prison term.
The judge, Justice Johnson, told the defendants: “In each of your cases the offence you committed is so serious that neither a fine nor a community sentence can be justified.”
On the question of harm to the victim, the judge said: “The transplant did not go ahead but each intended that it should go ahead and you each intended the harm to the donor that would result.
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“He would have faced spending the rest of his life with only one kidney and without the requisite funding for the required aftercare.”
He added that the risks had not been properly explained to the victim and there had been no consent “in any meaningful sense”.
Ekweremadu was found guilty in March 2023 at London’s Old Bailey criminal court of conspiring to traffic a young street trader into Britain for his body part.
Also convicted were his wife, and Obeta, who acted as a middleman in the plot.
The Ekweremadus’ daughter, who has a serious kidney condition, wept as she was cleared of the same charge.
In Britain, it is legal to donate a kidney, but not for financial or material reward.
It was the first time organ harvesting conspiracy charges had been brought under the UK’s 2015 Modern Slavery Act.
During the weeks-long trial, the 21-year-old victim from Lagos testified that the Ekweremadus had flown him to Britain to harvest his kidney.
The kidney was said to be intended for Sonia, who remains on dialysis with a renal condition, in return for up to £7,000 ($8,800).
The man said he had been recruited by a doctor working for the former Deputy Senate President and had thought he was coming to the UK to work.
He only realised it was for a kidney transplant when he was taken to London’s Royal Free Hospital last year, the court was told.
He fled and slept on the streets for three days after doctors there told him he would not be a suitable donor following preliminary tests.
He eventually walked into a police station in May 2022 and said he was “looking for someone to save my life”, the court heard.
Lawyers for the four accused insisted he was acting “altruistically”, and Ike Ekweremadu told jurors that he feared he was being “scammed”.
Ekweremadu has represented Enugu West Senatorial District in Nigeria for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) since 2003.
Leaders in Nigeria’s parliament this week appealed to the London court for clemency, arguing Ekweremadu was a first-time offender who had made valuable contributions to politics in West Africa.
He did not contest recent National Assembly elections as he was in custody before and during the trial.
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