A Nigerian senator Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice have been convicted of organ trafficking in the United Kingdom.
Ekweremadu, a former Nigerian deputy Senate president with his wife, and their doctor Obinna Obeta was found culpable of violating the Modern Slavery Act.
The court found the trio guilty of facilitating the travel of a young man to Britain with a view to his exploitation after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey.
They criminally conspired to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney, the jury found.
The judge, Justice Jeremy Johnson, will pass a sentence at a later date.
The organ donor had been offered an illegal reward to become a donor for the senator’s daughter after kidney disease forced her to drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University, the court heard.
Metropolitan police in June 2022 said that Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu and Ike Ekweremadu, who are 55 and 60 years old respectively have been remanded in custody were arraigned at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court.
In February 2022 the 21-year-old, the court said was falsely presented to a private renal unit at Royal Free hospital in London as a cousin to Ekweremadu’s daughter Sonia in a failed attempt to persuade medics to carry out an £80,000 transplant.
For a fee, a medical secretary at the hospital acted as an Igbo translator between the man and the doctors to help try to convince them he was an altruistic donor, the court heard.
The prosecutor Hugh Davies KC told the court the Ekweremadus and Obeta had treated the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward”. He said they entered an “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the man.
Davies said Ekweremadu’s behaviour showed “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy”. Ekweremadu is one Nigerian lawmakers that initiated the country’s laws against organ trafficking.
He said Ekweremadu “agreed to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter – somebody in circumstances of poverty and from whom he distanced himself and made no inquiries, and with whom, for his own political protection, he wanted no direct contact”.
Davies added: “What he agreed to do was not simply expedient in the clinical interests of his daughter, Sonia, it was exploitation, it was criminal. It is no defence to say he acted out of love for his daughter. Her clinical needs cannot come at the expense of the exploitation of somebody in poverty.”
Ekweremadu denied the charge and told the court he was the victim of a scam.
The doctor Obeta, who also denied the charge, claimed the man was not offered a reward for his kidney and was acting altruistically. Beatrice denied any knowledge of the alleged conspiracy. Sonia did not give evidence.
WhatsApp messages showed to the court revealed Obeta charged Ekweremadu 4.5m naira (about £8,000) made up of an “agent fee” and a “donor fee”.
Ekweremadu and Obeta admitted falsely claiming the man was Sonia’s cousin in his visa application and in documents presented to the hospital.
Davies said Ekweremadu ignored medical advice to find a donor for his daughter among genuine family members. He said: “At no point in time was there ever any intention for a family member close, medium or distant to do what could be paid for from a pool of donors.” (Guardian)
