- By Tom Symonds at the Old Bailey & Samantha Jagger
- BBC News
March 23, 2023 at 11:17 am GMT
Updated 33 minutes ago
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Senator Ike Ekweremadu is a prominent Nigerian politician
A wealthy senior Nigerian politician, his wife and a medical “middleman” have been found guilty of organ trafficking after they brought a 21-year-old man from Lagos to the UK.
Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56, and Dr. Obinna Obeta, 50, was convicted of conspiring to exploit the man for his kidney, in the first such case under modern slavery laws.
The Old Bailey heard the organ was intended for the couple’s daughter Sonia, aged 25.
She was cleared of the same charge.
The victim, a Lagos street vendor, was brought to the UK last year to provide a kidney as part of a £80,000 private transplant at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Prosecutors say he was offered up to £7,000 and promised opportunities to help in the UK and only realized what was going on after meeting doctors at the hospital.
It was alleged the defendants tried to persuade the Royal Free’s medics by pretending he was the cousin of Sonia, who has a debilitating illness and is on weekly dialysis, even though they were not related.
While it is legal to donate a kidney, it becomes criminal when there is a reward of money or other material benefits.
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Beatrice Ekweremadu has worked in the Nigerian National Accounts Office and holds a PhD in Accounting
Royal Free’s advisor, Dr. Peter Dupont, concluded the donor was unsuitable after learning that he had no counseling or advice on the risks of surgery and that he lacked the funds for the lifelong care he would need.
The court heard the Ekweremadus then transferred their interests to Turkey and set about finding another donor.
He echoed his fears, telling police: “The doctor said I was too young, but the man said if you don’t do it here, he would take me back to Nigeria and do it there.”
Lagos street market
Jurors heard Sonia was studying for a masters degree at Newcastle University when she fell ill in December 2019.
In 2021, her father enlisted the help of his medically trained brother, Diwe Ekweremadu, to search for a donor, the court heard.
Diwe Ekweremadu, who remains in Nigeria, reached out to a former classmate, Dr. Obeta, from Southwark, south London, who recently had a private kidney transplant at the Royal Free with a Nigerian donor.
dr Obeta then sat down with Dr. Chris Agbo of Vintage Health Group, a medical tourism company, and an agent to arrange a visa for the donor, the court heard.
The victim who knew the man who gave Dr. Obeta, who had donated his kidney, was recruited by a Lagos street market, where he made a few pounds a day selling phone accessories from a wheelbarrow.
Sonia, who refused to testify, cried in court when the jury acquitted her and tearfully hugged her father as he was remanded in custody along with the other guilty defendants before sentencing on May 5.
Legal first
After the convictions, Chief Prosecutor Joanne Jakymec described the conspiracy as a “horrific conspiracy.”
“The convicted defendants showed complete disregard for the welfare, health and well-being of the victim and consistently used their considerable influence to exercise a high degree of scrutiny, with the victim having limited understanding of what was really going on here,” she added .
Det Insp. Esther Richardson of the Metropolitan Police praised the victim for his courage in speaking out against the perpetrators.
She added that police, Crown Prosecution Service and Human Tissue Authority teams had “worked tirelessly on the case,” which marked the first time defendants had been convicted under the Modern Slavery Act of conspiracy to traffic in organs.
The Ekweremadus, who have an address in Willesden Green in north-west London, and Dr. Obeta, from Southwark, south London, had denied the charges against her.