Ike Ekweremadu, a former Deputy Senate President, and his wife, Beatrice, were found guilty of organ trafficking in the United Kingdom.
After a six-week trial at the Old Bailey, the duo and a medical doctor, Dr. Obinna Obeta, were found guilty of facilitating the travel of a young man to Britain with the intent of exploiting him.
The jury determined on Thursday that they criminally conspired to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London in order to exploit him for his kidney.
According to The Guardian UK, the judge, Justice Jeremy Johnson, will issue a sentence at a later date.
Ekweremadu, Beatrice, their daughter, Sonia, and Obeta were on trial for organ trafficking at the Old Bailey.
The verdict handed down on Thursday was the first of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.
Last year, Ekweremadu and his wife were arrested in the United Kingdom on suspicion of bringing a young man into the country to harvest his kidney.
The young man was said to have falsely presented himself as Sonia’s cousin in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade doctors to perform an £80,000 private procedure at London’s Royal Free Hospital.
After kidney disease forced Sonia to drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University, the young man was said to have been offered an illegal reward to become a donor for her.
Hugh Davies KC, the prosecutor, told the court that Ekweremadus and Obeta treated the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward.”
According to The Guardian UK, he stated that they engaged in a “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the man.
Ekweremadu’s actions demonstrated “entitlement, dishonesty, and hypocrisy,” Davies told the jury.
He claimed Ekweremadu “agreed to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter – someone in poverty from whom he distanced himself and made no inquiries, and with whom he wanted no direct contact for his own political protection.”
“What he agreed to do was not simply expedient in the clinical interests of his daughter, Sonia; it was exploitation, it was criminal,” Davies added. It is not an excuse to claim that he acted out of love for his daughter. Her clinical needs cannot be met at the expense of exploitation of a poor person.”
Ejes Gist News Nigeria reported on March 14 that Beatrice denied any involvement in the search for an organ donor for their ailing daughter, Sonia.
