A senior wealthy Nigerian politician, Senator Ike Ekweremadu and his wife and a medical “middleman” have been found guilty of an organ-trafficking plot, involving bringing a 21-year-old man to the UK. The trial kicked off a few months ago after their trial began.
A jury found that Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56 and medical “middleman” Dr Obinna Obeta, 50, were guilty of a conspiracy to bring a young man to Britain for his body part.
The Ekweremadus’ daughter Sonia, 25, wept as she was cleared of the same charge on Thursday.
The court heard that the 21-year-old street trader from Lagos was to be rewarded for donating a kidney to Sonia Ekweremadu in an £80,000 private procedure at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
When he was rejected as unsuitable, it is alleged the Ekweremadus transferred their interest to Turkey and set about finding another donor.
The Ekweremadus, who have an address in Willesden Green, north-west London, and Dr Obeta, from Southwark, south London, denied the charges against them.
The Ekweremadus allegedly set about finding a donor, enlisting the help of Dr Obeta, a former medical school classmate of Ike’s brother Isaac “Diwe” Ekweremadu, who remains in Nigeria.
In opening addresses at the Old Bailey in February, lawyers for the defendants insisted they believed the donor, who cannot be identified, was acting “altruistically”.
Martin Hicks KC, for Ike Ekweremadu, told jurors: “Be alive please to the possible cultural differences between this country and that of Nigeria, particularly to altruistic donation.”
He said: “We say the issue in this case is simple – did there exist an agreement to exploit (the donor) in the way the prosecution allege and if so who was a party to it?”
