Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a former deputy president of the Nigerian senate, his wife, Beatrice, 56, and Dr Obinna Obeta, 51, were found 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.
The court found them guilty of criminally conspiring to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney, the jury found.
The behaviour of Ekweremadu, a successful lawyer and founder of an anti-poverty charity who helped draw up Nigeria’s laws against organ trafficking, showed “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy”, Davies told the jury.
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He said Ekweremadu, who owns several properties and had a staff of 80, “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.”
Beatrice Ekweremadu
Ekweremadu, who denied the charge, told the court he was the victim of a scam. 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.
The 21-year-old street trader from Lagos was brought to the UK last year to provide a kidney to Sonia in an £80,000 private transplant at the Royal Free Hospital in Camden, north London. He claimed he was told to pretend to be Sonia's cousin to get the transplant approved.
But a consultant working in the NHS hospital refused to remove the vital organ having become suspicious because the young man appeared initially unaware he was the donor of the kidney and was clearly not 41 as his passport claimed. The Nigerian national would later tell police he had no idea his kidney was to be removed until he was taken to the Royal Free to meet the surgeon.
The victim, who cannot be named, later ran away, sleeping rough for three days, before walking into Staines Police Station on May 5 2022. He burst into tears as he told officers that he had been trafficked into the UK from Nigeria and that someone was trying to take one of his organs.
The Old Bailey heard he believed he was being brought to the UK to earn money for his family. He was also taken for blood tests in Nigeria, which he believed were for his visa, but these were actually to determine if his kidney was a medically suitable match to Sonia Ekweremadu.
The conspirators' plan was for the victim to provide a kidney to Sonia for between £2,400 and £7,000 and the promise of work in the UK.
Beatrice and Sonia both burst into tears in the dock and hugged Ike as the unanimous verdicts were announced after 13 hours and 42 minutes.
He admitted lying on a Visa and to doctors by saying that Sonia and the donor were cousins.
He was arrested on a flight which had landed at Heathrow airport from Istanbul on 21 June 2022.
He has been in custody at HMP Thameside since his arrest.
Source UK Guardian and Daily Mail.co.uk
So sad!!! This will be hard to bypass🫤🫤🫤
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