Ike Ekweremadu is a Nigerian senator, alongside his wife, and a medical “middleman” who had been engrossed in a case of Kidney Organ harvesting in the United Kingdom
At a UK Court on Thursday, he was found guilty of conspiring to traffic a market trader to the UK to harvest his kidney.
The Politician, his wife Beatrice, and his daughter Sonia stood trial accused of a conspiracy to bring the man to Britain from Lagos for his body part.
It was alleged that the 21-year-old street trader was to be rewarded for donating the organ to Sonia Ekweremadu, in an £80,000 private procedure at London’s Royal Free Hospital.
Dr. Obinna Obeta, 50, the medical “middleman”, was found guilty.
The Ekweremadus’ daughter Sonia, 25, wept as she was cleared of the same charge.
The case marks the first time defendants have been convicted under the Modern Slavery Act of an organ harvesting conspiracy.
As the donor was alleged to be paid a financial reward for his organ, it would have made the transplant unlawful.
The donor did not understand until his first appointment with a consultant at the hospital that he was there for a kidney transplant, the Old Bailey heard.
He was said by the consultant to have a “limited understanding” of why he was there and was “visibly relieved” at being told the operation would not go ahead.
It was claimed the man was falsely presented as Sonia’s cousin in a failed bid to persuade medics to carry out the procedure at the Royal Free.
The donor cannot be identified for legal reasons.
The Ekweremadus, who have an address in Willesden Green, northwest London, and Dr. Obeta, from Southwark, south London, denied the charge against them. Loop