Former deputy Senate President of Nigeria, Ike Ekweremadu, has been found guilty of organ trafficking by a United Kingdom court.
His wife, Beatrice, and a doctor involved in the case, Obinna Obeta, were also found guilty.
The jury found that they conspired to bring the 21-year-old at the centre of the matter to London to exploit him for his kidney.
According to the UK Guardian, it is the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act. Their daughter, Sonia, was however cleared of the charges.
The Ekweremadus were arrested by the London Metropolitan Police in June 2022.
They were alleged to have attempted to convince doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in London to perform an £80,000 transplant on the donor who was presented as Sonia’s cousin.
However, during the trial, the couple apologized for claiming that the donor was a relative.
Hugh Davies, the prosecutor, told the court the Ekweremadus and Obeta had treated the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward”.
He added that they entered an “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the 21-year-old.
The prosecutor said Ike Ekweremadu, a lawyer and lawmaker, “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”.
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.
Ike Ekweremadu is a Nigerian politician and a lawyer who hails from Enugu State who has served in the Senate of Nigeria since June 2003. He is a member of the People’s Democratic Party, and was the Deputy President of the Nigerian Senate for three consecutive senate.
