NIGERIAN politician Ike Ekweremadu, his wife Beatrice, and London-based doctor Obinna Obeta have been sentenced to jail terms for their roles in an illegal organ-harvesting plot.
Ike Ekweremadu was given nine years and eight months, Beatrice Ekweremadu, four and a half years, and Dr. Obinna Obeta, ten years. The three were found guilty of conspiring to arrange the travel of a man from Lagos to Britain to illegally harvest his kidney for a transplant for their sick daughter.
The victim would have faced spending the rest of his life
with only one kidney without the requisite funding for the required aftercare.
In the televised sentencing on Friday, Mr Justice Johnson said that people-trafficking across international borders for the harvesting of human organs is a form of slavery. ‘It treats human beings and their body parts as commodities to be bought and sold. It is a trade that preys on poverty, misery, and desperation. You each played a part in that despicable trade,’ he told the defendants.
During the trial, prosecutor Hugh Davies KC, told jurors: ‘Most parents, whether powerful or not in society, will do whatever is necessary to alleviate suffering in their child. The Ekweremadus were no different: the evidence – from downloads from their mobile phones, and wider actions – demonstrates a close, open, and loving family each with an understandable and direct interest in [their daughter] Sonia’s medical treatment.’
The Ekweremadus and Dr. Obeta created an ‘elaborate’ back story to try and get away with it, utilising their connections to get the donor a visa. While it is lawful for someone to donate a kidney, it is criminal to reward someone for doing so, jurors heard. When asked why they didn’t go to a member of their own family for the kidney, the prosecution said it was because the wealthy couple wanted the ‘risk to go to someone you don’t know.’
The 21-year-old street trader from Lagos was to be rewarded for donating a kidney to Sonia in an £80,000 private procedure at the Royal free Hospital in London. However, he was later rejected as unsuitable, despite the extensive efforts the family were said to have gone to get him, and it was alleged that the Ekweremadus then changed their donor search to Turkey after doctors refused them.
An investigation was launched after the young man ran away from London and slept rough for days before walking into a police station more than 20 miles away in Staines, Surrey, crying and in distress. The Ekweremadus, who have an address in Willesden Green, north-west London, and Dr. Obeta, from Southwark, south London, denied the c
harges against them before being found guilty.
The case marks Britain’s first successful illegal organ-harvesting prosecution, and Justice Johnson hoped that the case would act as a deterrent for others. ‘I hope that the publicity that attends these sentences will act as a deterrent to others who might be tempted to get involved in this vile trade,’ he said.
