In the first conviction of its sort under the Modern Slavery Act, Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a former vice president of the Nigerian senate, his wife, and a doctor, were found guilty of organ trafficking.<\/p>\n
After a six-week trial at the Old Bailey, the Nigerian politician, his wife Beatrice, 56, and Dr. Obinna Obeta, 51, were convicted guilty of aiding the flight of a young man to Britain for the purpose of his exploitation.<\/p>\n
The jury determined that they conspired to transport the 21-year-old street vendor from Lagos to London in order to abuse him for his kidney.<\/p>\n
The court heard that the man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was offered an illegal reward to become a kidney donor for the senator’s daughter after kidney disease forced her to drop out of a master’s programme in cinema at Newcastle University.<\/p>\n
In February 2022, the man was brought to a private kidney unit at London’s Royal Free hospital as Sonia’s cousin in an unsuccessful attempt to convince doctors to perform an \u00a380,000 transplant.<\/p>\n
The court heard that a medical secretary at the hospital worked as an Igbo translator between the man and the physicians in an effort to persuade them that the man was an altruistic donor.<\/p>\n
Hugh Davies KC, the prosecutor, told the court that Ekweremadus and Obeta viewed the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets \u2014 reward-based replacement parts.”<\/p>\n
He stated that they engaged in a “emotionally apathetic business transaction” with the individual.<\/p>\n
Davies told the jury that Ekweremadu’s behaviour demonstrated “entitlement, dishonesty, and hypocrisy.” Ekweremadu, a prominent lawyer and founder of an anti-poverty charity who helped draught Nigeria’s laws against organ trafficking, exhibited “entitlement, dishonesty, and hypocrisy,” Davies said.<\/p>\n
According to him, Ekweremadu, who owns multiple properties and employs 80 people, “decided to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter – a poor person from whom he distanced himself and made no queries, and with whom, for his own political security, he desired no direct touch.”<\/p>\n
Davies continued, “What he decided to do was not merely in Sonia’s clinical best interests; it was exploitation and it was illegal.” The claim that he behaved out of love for his daughter is not a valid defence. Her therapeutic needs cannot be met at the expense of exploiting a poor person.”<\/p>\n
Ekweremadu, who rejected the charge, said the court that he had been duped. Obeta, who also rejected the charge, stated the individual was acting altruistically and was not offered a reward for his kidney. Beatrice denied any awareness of the claimed plot. Sonia did not offer evidence.<\/p>\n
Obeta charged Ekweremadu 4.5 million naira (about \u00a38,000) in “agent fee” and “donation fee,” as evidenced by WhatsApp texts presented in court.<\/p>\n
Ekweremadu and Obeta admitted claiming fraudulently that the man was Sonia’s cousin on his visa application and medical records.<\/p>\n
Davies stated that Ekweremadu disregarded medical advice to find a donor for his daughter from within his own family. He stated, “There was never any plan for a close, medium, or distant relative to perform work that might be compensated for by a pool of donors.”<\/p>\n
Mr. Justice Jeremy Johnson, the judge, will pass judgement at a later date.<\/p>\n
BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the first conviction of its sort under the Modern Slavery Act, Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a former vice president of the Nigerian senate, his wife, and a doctor, were found guilty of organ trafficking. After a six-week trial at the Old Bailey, the Nigerian politician, his wife Beatrice, 56, and Dr. Obinna Obeta, 51, were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"0","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"ago","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"35"},"jnews_override_bookmark_settings":{"override_bookmark_button":"0","override_show_bookmark_button":"0"},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1389,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakamomodu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}