A court in the United Kingdom convicted former Nigerian Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, to nine years and eight months in jail for an organ trafficking plan.
The court also condemned his wife, Beatrice, to four years and six months in prison, while Dr. Obinna Obeta, the medical doctor who functioned as a middleman in the scheme, was sentenced to ten years in prison and his medical license was suspended.
The jury determined that they conspired to bring a 21-year-old Lagos street vendor to London to abuse him for his kidney.
The young man was claimed to have falsely presented himself as Sonia’s cousin in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade doctors to perform an £80,000 private surgery at London’s Royal Free Hospital.
After renal problems led Sonia to drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University, the young guy was reported to have been offered an unlawful reward to become a donor for her.
Theirs is the first such conviction under the Modern Slavery Act.
Hugh Davies KC, the prosecutor, told the court that Ekweremadus and Obeta viewed the man and other potential contributors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward.”
